Barry Soper: 'Loose lipped apprentice PM' - Fallout from Luxon's 'C-listers' clanger

The Prime Minister’s trade mission to Japan’s been pretty successful but who would have noticed?

Most of the business signed there, like the Rocket Lab agreement to send Japanese satellites into space, is a great yarn.

But the trip will be remembered for anything but the business foray to our fourth most important export market.

It’ll be remembered for a broken down RNZAF jet in Papua New Guinea, and the rescue of the mission by the Air New Zealand boss, who happened to be on the trip with his chairwoman, by diverting a plane out of Auckland to pick them up in Brisbane.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Is PM Luxon on a Trade Trip to Japan or a Corporate Welfare Trip?

Is PM Luxon on a Trade Trip to Japan or a Corporate Welfare Trip? The curious case of Tāwhaki Aerospace.

Newsroom's Emma Hatton reported today that Tāwhaki Aerospace, "got millions of [taxpayer] dollars it wasn’t eligible for". She says, "The runway’s completed & the hangar is almost there, but official documents show Tāwhaki Aerospace was never eligible for the government cash it got to build them".