Dead penguins wash up Briefs
National overtakes Labour
Labour is down in the latest TVNZColmar Brunton poll, but its partners – the Green Party and NZ First – are up. Labour slid 5 percentage points, to 43 per cent, in the second TVNZ poll of the year. Meanwhile, National is up 1 percentage point to 44 per cent, taking over as the most popular party. The Greens jumped 1 percentage point to 6 per cent, while NZ First climbed 2 percentage points to 5 per cent. Jacinda Ardern has also taken a hit in the preferred prime minister stakes. The poll has her down 4 percentage points to 37 per cent. Meanwhile, NZ First leader Winston Peters is up 1 percentage point to 5 per cent. National’s Simon Bridges has jumped 9 percentage points to 10 per cent. Large numbers of dead blue penguins have washed up on east coast beaches from Bay of Plenty north this summer, with the total number thought to be in the thousands. The number of dead birds was unusual but not unprecedented, Department of Conservation penguin expert Graeme Taylor said. It was about a one-in-20-year event, with the last similar year being 1998. The number of deaths was probably a result of a change of weather patterns, he said. There were probably 5000 to 10,000 little blue penguin breeding pairs along the east coast of northern New Zealand.
Big boost for Aratoi
A major auction has boosted Masterton art museum Aratoi’s coffers, with a single piece selling for $200,000. The show’s centrepiece was Milan Mrkusich’s Triptych: Homage to Rodchenko, 1966. The $200,000 bid set a record for one of his works. Aratoi Regional Trust chairwoman Barbara Roydhouse said the show had been a success. The museum had been subject to funding cuts in recent years. Roydhouse said it was too early to say exactly how much had been raised, but it was substantial.
Dead men identified
Staff at an Auckland factory are mourning two fellow workers after they were hit and killed by a bus on Saturday night. The collision occurred about 7pm in Papatoetoe, south Auckland. Police named the men as Taylor Charles King, 23, from Papatoetoe, and 34-year-old Jeremy Tokotai Kaukasi.
Mayor recovers after surgery
Auckland Mayor Phil Goff is recovering well after unscheduled heart surgery over the weekend. In an email newsletter yesterday, Goff said he was resting up after an angioplasty to widen obstructed arteries leading to the heart. ‘‘The procedure went well and I’m hassling the doctor to let me go home.’’