Stories by Phil Pennington

The Transport Agency has given out a quarter of a million dollars in bonuses, with much more of it going to its better-paid staff than to lower earners.

Councils claim they are doing better at checking fire safety systems in buildings, and especially boarding house-type accommodation like Loafers Lodge.

Bay of Plenty firefighters have not inspected any emergency housing for almost a year, after they asked for stab-proof vests and did not get them.

An asbestos scare around air tanks for emergency crews has spread to encompass five agencies including police and defence.

Fire and Emergency is blaming urban sprawl and traffic jams for the slower response rate to attend blazes. So it moved the goalposts and gave them more time to respond.

Failure-prone safety netting allowed a tramper to fall from the height of three storeys into a West Coast river, sparking nationwide checks and upgrades of almost 150 swingbridges in 2020. Video

Analysis - After National took a stance against bilingual road signs, then walked-back on it, what does the research say?

The workplace safety regulator has ordered a review of asbestos management plans at about 300 of the country's fire stations.

A cycling lobby group is questioning why the transport agency has not already done the work required to take the wobble out of Auckland Harbour Bridge.

The Auckland Harbour Bridge wobbles when enough people walk on it, to the extent it could result in "serious crushing injuries".

Te Whatu Ora is delaying its decisions on a mass restructure involving about 1600 hundred jobs, the national health agency says.

Meanwhile, Wellington City Council will carry out more building audits in response to a critical finding by MBIE, the mayor says. Audio

Eight months before the Loafers Lodge fire, the building regulator told Wellington City Council it was doing six-to-10 times too few safety checks on buildings, and to do more. Audio

A host of shortcomings has been pinpointed in an IT overhaul at Archives NZ that hugely disrupted public access to more than six million public records.

PR firms think political parties should have to disclose their use of artificial intelligence in campaign advertising, but advertisers are not so sure. Audio

Analysis - Hawke's Bay dodged a much worse cellphone and internet blackout in Cyclone Gabrielle when fuel supplies ran critically low, papers show. Audio

Lower Hutt mayor Campbell Barry says FENZ is trying to "spin their way through" concerns about resource shortages in the Wellington region.

MetLink says it was not aware of the cameras when it purchased the large digital billboards for Wellington train stations.

Spark's offer to swap $24 million it planned to spend on a 5G rollout came after towns were completely cut off following Cyclone Gabrielle. Audio

Analysis - When a dairy caught fire at the end at the end of my street in April, a fire engine came from a station across the Hutt River in Seaview, rather than just down the road.

Rathkeale College argued the sprinklers would cost so much it would jeopardise its whole project to upgrade the alarms and other fire protections.

Awanui says the "pragmatic and sensible outcome" is to not proceed with its proposal at this time.

Key parts of a government proposal to bring in stronger fire protection for infill housing were withdrawn just days before the fatal Loafers Lodge fire.

A 111 team leader and firefighters' union Wellington president say call-takers were short staffed the night of the fatal Loafers Lodge fire - and they're struggling with feeling they should have done…

If two of the country's largest fire trucks had got to the Loafers Lodge blaze, and sooner, they could have got more water on, a senior firefighter says .