The Australian Senate has today voted for a landmark referendum to be held on giving indigenous people a voice in Australian politics. If the issue is approved by public vote, it would change the Australian constitution to mandate permanent recognition and representation of First Nations Australians in the country’s government in the form of a Voice to Parliament. This body could provide advice and input into all matters of government policy that impact indigenous Australians lives. This would also include representation at local and state levels of government, as Australia has a federal system.

The vote follows decades of advocacy by First Nations people across Australia, including 2017’s First Nations National Constitution Convention, which produced the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which said that the sovereignty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders had not been ceded and coexists with the power of the Crown. It asks for a voice to parliament to be enshrined in the constitution and for a commission to oversee the agreements between forms of government and the telling of indigenous history.

“I say to my fellow Australians – parliaments pass laws, but it is people that make history. This is your time, your chance, your opportunity to be a part of making history,” said Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese.

Pat Anderson, an Alyawarre human rights activist, added: “You will give us the power when you vote yes, we have the mandate of the Australian people. And then we can talk as equals, more equal with the parliament and the executive of the day.”

Earlier this year, discussion on Australian social media compared the proposed Voice unfavourably to the Waitangi Tribunal, suggesting that the tribunal made binding decisions the New Zealand parliament had to follow. That is untrue.

The referendum will be held later this year.

You can read more coverage on The Guardian Australia here, and a full explainer of the indigenous voice referendum here.

Chris Hipkins will meet with China’s president Xi Jinping while in Beijing next week.

The prime minister’s leading a 29-strong trade delegation to China, departing on Sunday. While in Beijing, he’ll also meet with premier Li Qiang, and the chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, Zhao Leji.

Hipkins will also visit Tianjin and Shanghai for tourism and business meetings.

“Since becoming prime minister I’ve prioritised working in partnership with business to boost export growth in order to grow our economy,” Hipkins said. “China represents nearly a quarter of all our exports, was our second largest source of tourists pre-Covid and is a significant source of international students, so it’s a critical part of our economic recovery.

“The export of traditional goods like dairy, meat and wood to China remain important, but it’s critical we also throw our support behind emerging sectors such as gaming and health and wellness, and the make-up of the delegation reflects our objective of diversifying the breadth of our export offering.”

The government’s announced tweaks to its flagship budget announcement for the early childhood sector following backlash from service providers.

This year’s budget included an extension to 20 hours free early childhood to two-year-olds. But a number of centres said this would impact on their financial viability and could see services shuttered.

Associate education minister Jo Luxton said she met with sector representatives when concerns were raised. “They specifically flagged the proposed condition requiring services to offer enrolments for 20 hours only, if requested. On the basis of their constructive feedback and with further advice from officials, minister Tinetti and I have agreed to remove the condition.

“This change will still enable parents to access more affordable childcare while allowing services to retain flexibility in their enrolment practices to support their viability.”

Speaking at his post-cabinet press conference today, prime minister Chris Hipkins defended the decision not to consult with the sector ahead of the budget. “Ultimately this is a process that we go through almost ever year… where budget funding is allocated and we work through with the relevant sector the details of implementation,” he said. “We have been working quickly to remove any uncertainty that the sector may face.”

News of Meng Foon’s resignation as race relations commissioner was rushed out on a Friday afternoon – a time typically reserved for news that is trying to be kept quiet. But this time, it’s persisted well into Monday, as Foon himself has pushed back against the government’s narrative.

According to Foon, he emailed the prime minister on Friday morning to let him know he intended to resign on Sunday due to a perceived conflict of interest.

“So, as a courtesy email to the prime minister, I said ‘look, the associate minister [of Justice, Deborah Russell] is deciding, highly probable that she’s going to sack me and so I’m going to resign, and I’ll resign this Sunday’,” he told RNZ.

But by Friday night, news of Foon’s resignation was splashed across all media outlets. Foon said the news must have been leaked. “I’m as confused as you are regarding my resignation. The news had already said that I had resigned, so that message must have leaked out into the cosmos somehow.”

Foon said the process was an “absolute shambles” and he was waiting to see what happened. “No one’s spoken to me, so I’m just waiting to see what they’re going to do.”

Read more on Foon’s resignation in today’s Bulletin

Big news for Auckland commuters, with news that public transport in the super city will soon allow you to tag on without a Hop Card.

Auckland Transport’s announced that within the next year, customers will be able to use debit/credit cards with Paywave, Apple Pay or Google Pay to tag on and off buses, trains and ferries. It’ll bring Auckland in line with other cities like Sydney and London that have already introduced this technology.

“You won’t need to stress about buying a Hop card, topping it up, or forgetting it. You can just tag on with what you already have in your pocket,” said AT’s chief executive Dean Kimpton. “It’s going to make paying for public transport as easy and simple as paying for a coffee, as it should be.”

It’s expected the changes, at a cost of about $23 million, will lift public transport use by as much as three million trips a year. “This change is going to make public transport more appealing for more people including tourists, visitors, casual users, and first-time users,” Kimpton said.

Auckland Transport said there is a lot of behind the scenes work necessary to switch over to the new payment system, but it’s anticipated to be in place in 2024. Then, in 2026, a national ticketing service is expected to be introduced, streamlining how people pay for public transport in all main centres.

Consultation’s opened on proposed changes to the Emissions Trading Scheme.

Among the possible changes is an option to limit the number of carbon units large emitters can purchase, as a way to incentivise emissions reduction. At the moment, companies can choose to offset their fossil fuel emissions through, effectively, investing in new forestry.

But that, the government has argued, doesn’t actually reduce the amount of pollution being produced in the first place.

“The Climate Change Commission has advised us that, in its current form, the NZ ETS may not be incentivising emissions reductions at source,” said James Shaw, the climate change minister. “Currently it is cheaper for most companies to just buy emissions units, rather than invest in ways to cut pollution. We want to make sure the NZ ETS is doing the job, as well as it can be, for the work it was created for.”

Four options are on the table, including creating separate incentives for gross emission reductions, or alternative strengthening the current incentives. Another option would see the government or overseas business able to buy emissions units in order to increase demand – something that would up the price of units.

“Forests are hugely significant to our economy, rural communities, and to Māori, both culturally and economically,” forestry minister Peeni Henare said. “But encouraging afforestation should not replace or delay gross emissions reductions. We need to consider how the NZ ETS can provide the necessary price for both gross emissions reductions while continuing to incentivise the planting of trees.”

Any changes won’t be decided on before the October election, as public feedback will help inform any next steps. Consultation closes on August 11.

The new Pūhoi to Warkworth motorway has officially opened to cars from this morning.

It was formally opened by the prime minister before the weekend, but the transport agency Waka Kotahi confirmed it was now open to the public in both directions.

The 18.5 kilometre stretch of highway will shave about 10 minutes off travel time for those commuting between Northland and Auckland. More than 35,000 vehicles are expected to use the road every day.

The Act Party says using ethnicity as a determining tool in who has access to healthcare is “lazy and divisive”.

It’s been revealed today that Auckland surgeons must consider a patient’s ethnicity when deciding whether to give them priority for surgery. It’s one of five factors, alongside clinical priority, time spent on the waitlist, geographic location and deprivation level.

Some surgeons, speaking anonymously to the Herald, said the new “equity adjustor score” system was indefensible. “It’s ethically challenging to treat anyone based on race, it’s their medical condition that must establish the urgency of the treatment,” said one.

National’s leader Christopher Luxon told Newstalk ZB the policy would absolutely be scrapped should he become prime minister, while David Seymour told Newshub it was completely wrong. “We’ve got a government that is actually actively promoting racial discrimination now and it’s got to stop,” said Seymour.

“If you’re getting the other things right – the clinical judgement of the doctors, the level of deprivation, how long they’ve been waiting, if they live in a remote area – then you should actually already be capturing the very disadvantages that leave Māori and Pacific worse off.”

Health minister Ayesha Verrall said there were important reasons why ethnicity should be considered, namely that Māori and Pacific people “historically have a lower life expectancy and poor health outcomes”.

Sixteen-year-old Jaylin lives in Ōtara, attends Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate, and has an after-school job. But it’s not just a pocket money gig – she regularly works well over 20 hours a week, and has worked as much as 35 hours in a school week in the past. She tells Q&A’s Indira Stewart: “I get home at around 11pm from work and then I normally go to sleep at around 1am, sometimes 2am or 3am from doing assessments after work.”

The student stories in Stewart’s report are heartbreaking, and help cast a new light on many of those dramatic headlines about record-low attendance rates. “The choice that [students] have in front of them is they need to work to support the income of the family,” says Tāmaki College principal Soana Pamaka. “And our young people are very, very loyal to family. So if it comes down to the choice of school or work, they will work.” The whole story is well worth a watch, or read.

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The National Party’s brought back an element of its 2020 crime policy related to gangs – but the government’s said it’s just tinkering around the edges.

Announced yesterday by party leader Christopher Luxon, the plan would make being a member of a gang an aggravating factor when it comes to sentencing.

“Aggravating factors acknowledge that in some cases, the circumstances surrounding a crime may inflict greater harm upon their victims, and so warrant stronger sentences,” Luxon said in a press release.

Expounding upon that this morning during a chat with Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking, Luxon said his party will have further announcements about crime ahead of October’s election. “There is need for us to tighten up sentencing, particularly what is called sentencing discounts. This is about aggravating factors… I agree there is a lot more we need to do to tighten up in the sentencing space. We’ll have more to say about that very shortly,” he said.

The policy wasn’t announced as a result of the ongoing situation in Ōpōtiki, said Luxon, and was already in the works. It would mean judges were required – not just encouraged – to take gang membership into account.

“What we’re going to say is the judges are required to consider they are a gang member and that means they will get a tougher sentence. At the moment there is an aggravating factor for organised crime… what we’re saying is, no, if you are a gang member that will be an aggravating factor.”

It was wrong for a gang member to have “higher” rights than anyone else and the police needed to have “much tougher powers” to stop them, Luxon said.

But Labour’s not convinced. Ginny Andersen, the police minister and party police spokesperson, said it was “lazy” policy and just a rehash of what had been rolled out by National before. “The law as it stands says sentencing must take into account being in a gang or organised crime group as an aggravated factor in sentencing. National are simply proposing a technical tweak.

“This announcement just shows Christopher Luxon and National once again pretending to be tough.”