Community

Splash Palace closed a pool nearly once a week over the past year — three times more often than the council's own target allows. A report to the finance and policy committee revealed 47 unplanned closures at the Invercargill facility in the year to June 2026, well above the

A national grid failure and a storm hit Southland at the same time on Sunday, knocking out power to around 25,000 customers for roughly two hours at midday. Transpower, which owns the national grid, experienced a significant issue at lunchtime that cut supply to most of Southland. That fault

Gore District Council has dropped its support for the Government's Head Start local government reforms — not because it wants amalgamation, but because it wants residents to get a vote. The decision, made Tuesday, shifts the district's position toward the Local Government Commission process, which requires any

Rugby Park's fireworks are back — and bigger than before. The ILT Fireworks Spectacular returns on Friday October 2, 2026, when the Southland Stags host Northland in their final regular season home game. Kick-off is 7.10pm. The fireworks go up at approximately 8.50pm, straight after full-time. Now

Nearly $370,000 is heading into Southland communities after the first round of 2026 grants from the NZAS and Ngāi Tahu Community Development Fund was announced this week. Ten projects share $367,000 in the fourth annual round of the $500,000 fund, which is administered jointly by Rio Tinto

Southland District Council is spending its $1 million Milford Sound windfall on public toilets. Council agreed at its meeting on Wednesday to direct the money — received from selling its two percent shareholding in Milford Sound Tourism Limited — toward renewing and upgrading public toilets along the main tourist route through Southland

New Zealand's top one percent of earners pay more income tax than the entire bottom half of the country. That's the central claim in a new handbook from the Taxpayers' Union, released this week as the 2026 election campaign heats up. The group says its

Two of New Zealand's rarest birds have just got a very wealthy support crew. The kākāpō and the Chatham Island tāiko have been named in the Phoenix Species Project — a $200 million global initiative backed by Re:wild, the Bezos Earth Fund, Leonardo DiCaprio, and a handful of