Matua Kahurangi: Te Pāti Māori: Too busy crying over Gaza to care about murdered Māori kids

When Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi were suspended from Parliament for 21 days last week, I was looking forward to the break. A full three weeks without the two scribble-faced co-offenders staging another headline-grabbing tantrum sounded like bliss. Unfortunately, the New Zealand media just couldn’t help themselves. Once again, these two were centre stage, this time inserting themselves into an international incident like they’re running the United Nations.

Lindsay Mitchell: New Report Measures Father Absence in NZ

Thousands of New Zealand children struggle with having no father in their lives, and a new report from Family First - WHERE DOES HE LIVE? Measuring Father Absence in New Zealand - finds little change since Children's Commissioner Laurie O'Reilly described fatherless families as the 'greatest social challenge facing New Zealanders' in 1998.

Report author Lindsay Mitchell says, "Last year one in twenty births had no father registered; one in six did not have a father living at the same address as the mother and almost one in five had parents with no stated legal relationship.”