Jan Tinetti Labour MP On March 30, 2021, New Zealand received some confirmation that what we are doing for women is working. The World Economic Forum released its 2021 Global Gender Gap Report, analysing the gender equality gap...

Sideline Sid Sports correspondent & historian www.sunlive.co.nz The start of the Bay of Plenty senior rugby season last weekend got Sideline Sid thinking what the local rugby scene looked like a century ago. Past papers provided...

Weather Eye with John Maunder Rainfalls for the month of March have been recorded in Tauranga since 1898 – except for 1904, 1908 and 1909. This graph below shows the range of rainfalls from a high of 504 mm in 1979, to a...

Winston Watusi Music Plus With Bay Dreams, One Love and more, Tauranga is getting a name as a festival city; but there's something unique about the Jazz Festival. It may be that it originated here, but that's not the only...

Daniel Hutchinson From The Hutch Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble. Cool it with a baboon's blood, Then the charm is firm and good. And there we have it - our travel bubble with Australia is complete...

Angie Warren-Clark Labour MP Happy Easter and what a fabulous weekend it’s been here in Tauranga Moana. Following the government’s recently announced Housing Package, just last week in the Bay of Plenty, we saw local...

Simon Bridges National Party MP simonbridges.co.nz A couple of weekends back, I had the pleasure of an afternoon at the races at the Tauranga Racecourse. I’m not a racing man but I’ve been going to this event, the...

Straight from city council A personal view, by Councillor Steve Morris As a kid, I admired Peter Blake’s round-the-world sailing. Every crewman was focussed on ‘making the boat go faster’. Each guy pulled his...

Nigel Tutt Chief Executive of Priority One The recent announcement about the opening of the two-way trans-Tasman travel bubble provides us with some interesting implications for the New Zealand economy. The travel bubble is the...

Sideline Sid Sports correspondent & historian www.sunlive.co.nz Covid-19 has become the final nail in the countries daily newspapers coverage of local sport. Stuff had scythed through their ranks of sports journalists long...

Weather Eye with John Maunder Temperatures have been recorded in the Tauranga area at several sites during the last 107 years including the current Tauranga Airport site from June 1990. The graph shows details of the average daily...

Winston Watusi Music Plus  After a two-year build-up it’s here; jazz is in the air, everywhere you look around. Fingers crossed about the weather, and I hope everyone has fun. This week here, however, is a jazz-free...

Tamati Coffey Labour List MP I’m proud that the new $3.8 billion contestable Housing Acceleration Fund announced recently, as part of a package designed to build more houses faster, includes infrastructure funding for papakainga...

Todd Talks with Todd Muller National MP Some four years after this government promised to address the housing crisis, they have announced their new policy. What they have done, against their earlier promises to leave...

Daniel Hutchinson From The Hutch It was a huge relief for everyone when the giant container ship Ever Given finally slid out of the narrows of the Suez Canal this week. That was a hard squeeze, but at least it’s out of the...

Sideline Sid Sports correspondent & historian www.sunlive.co.nz It is hard to believe that it is 50 years since the first running of the Japan Trophy race at Tauranga racecourse. What started life as the Bay of Plenty Japan...

Weather Eye with John Maunder The ocean drives the world’s weather and climate and anchors the global economy and food security. WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas says that this year’s World Meteorological Day...

Winston Watusi Music Plus Okay. Last column before the Jazz Festival arrives. It’s quite exciting... There is a veritable deluge of music about to flood the town, with more details being announced every day. That’s...

Daniel Hutchinson From The Hutch Mrs Pig was very tired and did not want to look after her three little pigs anymore. So, she freed up some equity in her Te Puna lifestyle block to provide a house deposit for each of them and told...