The following are just 20 of the best-read Premium articles in 2025.
After years of declining education achievement in secondary schools, the latest data has bucked the trend. Illustration / Paul Slater
This story originally ran on November 28, 2025.
Is the education tide turning?
After years of declining education achievement in secondary schools, the latest data has bucked the trend.
The levels of achievement among school leavers at NCEA Levels 2, 3 and for University Entrance (UE) for 2024 were the first increases at any level since 2020 – but Māori fell further behind non-Māori, and the gap between rich and poor was as pronounced as ever.
With school-by-school information obtained under the Official Information Act, the Herald was able to crunch the University Entrance and NCEA Level 3 data for every high school in the country.
Search our interactive chart for your local schools’ results and read the full story here.
Pets and Pats owner Angela Beer with one of the fleet of vans that collect dogs from Auckland’s most exclusive suburbs. Photo / Supplied
This story originally ran on May 4, 2025.
After a two-and-a-half-year legal battle to keep their identities secret, it can now be revealed that a posh doggy daycare and the high-profile entrepreneur who runs it have been prosecuted twice by Auckland Council after hundreds of complaints from neighbours.
The Herald has been attending Environment Court hearings since 2022 for Angela Maree Beer, who is the sole director and shareholder of Teddy and Friends Limited, better known as Pets & Pats.
Beer was already a reality TV star and successful creator of the feminine DIY products business Hello Dolly when she took over a friend’s small dog-walking venture around 2011 and used her marketing background to grow it into a sought-after, exclusive service.
But the seemingly explosive growth of the company over the past decade attracted the negative attention of neighbours, who complained about the noise, and city inspectors, who found that Pets & Pats had violated the terms of how the Dairy Flat property could be used.
Numerous criminal charges were filed against Beer and her company in July 2022, alleging that she had violated her resource consent 83 times between late December 2021 and the end of May the following year.
Interim name suppression was granted for both Beer and her business early on in the legal process.
That was despite the fact that Pets & Pats had already been the subject of past media coverage because of neighbour complaints, including reporting that Beer had been under investigation by Auckland Council.
Due to a series of legal twists that followed the filing of charges, this is the first time that the court proceedings can be reported.
Under the soon-to-be-replaced fuel tax system, you pay less if your vehicle is efficient. Illustration / AI generated
This story originally ran on August 11, 2025.
The Government this year announced it’s preparing to stop funding roads from fuel taxes and switch to road user charges in 2027, with Transport Minister Chris Bishop saying it will be “the biggest change to how we fund our roading network in 50 years”.
Currently, for every litre of petrol you put in your car you pay 70.024 cents into the National Land Transport Fund – used to build and maintain our roads.
Or, if you own a diesel or electric car you pay into the fund via road user charges, because electric cars don’t fill at the pump and the price of diesel doesn’t include a 70c per litre charge.
Road user charges are a fundamentally different charging model: a per-kilometre charge. This is the system the Government plans to replace a fuel tax with.
Herald data editor Chris Knox explains the change and what it could mean for you.
Read the full story and see the interactive here.
Rickhil Prakash, director of Hills Real Estate and previously named as one of New Zealand’s biggest property traders.
This story originally ran on May 6, 2025.
House hunter Sarah’s phone beeped every morning with a list of the latest South Auckland homes that had just gone on sale.
But in January four Hills Real Estate-listed homes looked strangely familiar.
“Didn’t they just sell at auction – we were there for it,” she said to herself.
Sarah rewatched the January 29 auction on YouTube, and, sure enough, the Hills Real Estate team had bought and put the homes back on sale all within two days.
She soon found Hills-linked property traders had bought and sold dozens of South Auckland homes in 2024 that she had also been interested in.
The traders’ goal is to buy and on-sell the homes as quickly as possible at prices tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars higher.
Sarah fears it artificially drives house prices up.
She’s not alone. Two South Auckland first-home buyers told the Herald in 2021 it had been “heartbreaking” to watch a Hills Real Estate-linked trader relist homes they tried to buy for prices up to $100,000 higher.
A Herald analysis goes inside $60 million of sales by one of NZ’s biggest property traders to reveal the buy and sell prices from each of the 71 deals and the traders’ investment philosophy.
Kristy Maguire with her baby Toby, who was taken away from her when she developed postpartum psychosis.
This story originally ran on September 17, 2025.
In late 2022, Tauranga mum Kristy Maguire went to what she thought was a standard follow-up appointment with a psychiatrist.
Maguire had given birth to her first child, a son, Toby, a little over three weeks prior. The pregnancy had not been an easy one. She was diagnosed with preeclampsia, a condition characterised by extraordinary high blood pressure putting her at risk of stroke.
The diagnosis was so severe, Maguire was told to drive immediately to the hospital to be induced, without time even to detour by her house to grab her pre-packed baby bag. After days of painful and invasive attempts at induction, Maguire gave birth by C-section.
Unfortunately, the preeclampsia did not subside after birth, even after Maguire had returned from hospital. This condition, combined with the birth itself, put Maguire under extreme pressure.
Returning home from hospital, Maguire began to experience symptoms of postpartum psychosis, a condition that in its most severe form affects two to four of every 1000 pregnancies. This means about 100-180 women experience this severe form of postpartum psychosis each year in New Zealand.
Maguire’s life began to feel like the film The Truman Show, in which everyone was in on a great but sinister secret – everyone but her. Maguire was experiencing what are called persecutory delusions, thinking people were out to get her and Toby.
Maguire went to the emergency department (ED) twice, presenting with symptoms of psychosis; she spent two days in the mental health unit the first time before being discharged, and the second time was discharged from the ED after a few hours.
Maguire, who describes herself as a “compliant person”, had been following the rules. After her diagnosis, she took medication for psychosis and went to her mental health appointments voluntarily.
This time, however, a meeting she thought was a standard follow-up with a psychiatrist felt different.
The psychiatrist told her she was being sectioned under the Mental Health Act. She would be kept in a mental health facility for five days and monitored. Toby could visit, but not stay.
Maguire was given a piece of paper detailing her rights.
Maguire was a mother facing a mental health crisis who had her baby taken away because there was no help available. Similar yawning gaps exist across our maternal mental health services, including counselling for stillbirth and suicide. Thomas Coughlan investigated how mental health services are failing new mums.
Tom Phillips (insets) spent most of his life, then died on a country road in a shootout with police, in and around the bush surrounding Marokopa. New Zealand Herald composite photo
This story originally ran on September 21, 2025.
Before he vanished into thick Waikato bush with his children, Tom Phillips was more than their father.
He was also their teacher: in charge of the homeschool education the three kids were receiving.
Home schooling was a family tradition. A Herald investigation has revealed that as a young boy, he too was home schooled at times by his parents Julia and Neville on the family’s sprawling Marokopa farm.
His early education at home was a world away from the more structured and formal schooling he received later as a boarding student at the prestigious and expensive Hamilton private school St Paul’s Collegiate.
Phillips learned the basics of mathematics and literacy in the family farmhouse.
His personal Marokopa schoolyard doubled as his backyard.
When he wasn’t being taught core subjects by his mum Julia, he was learning life skills on the family farm, assisting his dad Neville.
The Phillips farm – like others in the Waikato and King Country – has rough craggy hills with steep drops and deep isolated gullies with no cell phone coverage. In winter it’s swallowed up by fog and low cloud.
It’s land Phillips headed into the first time he vanished with his children in September 2021: an abduction many now believe was a “dry run” for the second longer disappearance, which ended with his violent death.
Neil Reid tracks his descent into armed fugitive life and losing it all in a police shoot-out on a deserted road.
Stu McPherson and Karee Oates – McPherson died in his sleep and never got to meet the couple’s baby daughter.
This article originally ran on June 28, 2025.
Stu McPherson loved his rugby – his private photos and his professional CV are peppered with big matches and familiar faces. As an All Blacks fan and a Rugby World Cup TV executive producer, he travelled the world. He played socially for many years. He was also an associate producer of the acclaimed Match Fit show, in which former big-name players are trained back to mid-life fitness.
On a cold winter’s night in early June 2021, the 47-year-old settled onto the couch at his Ellerslie, Auckland, home for a regular Saturday night ritual – a Super Rugby game on the telly.
McPherson, who was discharged from Mercy Ascot private hospital in Greenlane the previous day, following routine shoulder surgery to fix an aggravated rugby injury, dozed off on the couch after the game.
His fiancée Karee Oates – eight months’ pregnant with their first child – went to bed about 12.30am, with McPherson asleep on the couch. She returned downstairs at 4.30am to turn off the living room heater, thinking that would coax him upstairs to a warm bed.
“The following morning – I couldn’t tell you the exact time – but at approximately 7am, I woke up and he still wasn’t [in bed],” she says, through tears.
“I went downstairs and I could immediately tell that he was no longer with us.”
Her fiancé never woke from his sleep. He would never get to meet his baby girl, born just a few weeks later.
Amid questions over his prescribed medication regimen and a formal investigation into McPherson’s care, his devastated fiancée speaks out about her long battle for answers.
Christchurch detective Luke Fazackerley is accused of having an intimate relationship with a woman he met when she reported being raped to police.
This story originally ran on June 16, 2025.
Twenty-four-year-old rape complainant Kelly* met detective Luke Fazackerley in a police station interview room.
He was eight years older, a foot taller and the man tasked with investigating the complaint she was there to make.
Kelly, then 22, says a relationship between her and the detective began with a simple message: a text from him on November 15, 2023, sharing her investigation file number.
“He would also ring me to ask questions sometimes and it was during those phone calls that he would ask me the question, and one of which was, do I have a partner? and I was like, ‘Is it relevant?’”
At the time, she said he was almost a “hero” to her.
“Wanting to protect me, saying how awful these people are, how they take advantage of people. Funnily enough.”
He was “gentle and nurturing” and there for her at a time when she said none of her family members lived in Aotearoa or knew what she was going through.
Kelly felt their dynamic shifted further after he texted her in the small hours of New Year’s Day.
Soldiers from 2nd/1st Battalion, Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment, taking part in an exercise. Inset is the regimental corps badge. Photo / Herald composite
This story originally ran on November 9, 2025.
In every way, the whistleblower skipped the chain of command.
An infantry officer, newly posted to one of the country’s premier infantry units, found himself rocked by the abuse, bullying and harassment that seemed to pervade 2/1st Battalion, Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment.
Frustrated, the officer took his concerns right to the top of the command chain, warning leaders of the collapsing discipline – which included physical and sexual violence.
The officer has since left the Army.
“I knew good – and I came back to bad,” he told the Herald about arriving at the Burnham base of 2/1 in 2022, after other postings.
He emailed Sergeant Major of the Army Warrant Officer Class One Wiremu Moffitt and later then-Chief of Army Major General John Boswell.
He told Moffitt: “If this is happening in one unit, what does it look like Army-wide?”
One of our premiere infantry units faced close scrutiny over 28 months after a whistleblower revealed an unhealthy “boys club” culture, hard drinking, sex assaults and bullying. David Fisher investigates.
Supermarket bread is a staple in most Kiwi shopping trolleys but how healthy are our favourite brands? Photo / Herald composite
This story originally ran on December 2, 2025.
Wholegrain, multigrain, high-protein or low-carb? If the bread aisle makes your eyes glaze over, you’re not alone. Between loaves that promise to be “stone-ground”, “high-protein”, or “handcrafted”, it can be hard to tell which ones are actually good for you and which are just good at marketing.
One improvement in supermarket pre-packaged loaves has happened without most of us noticing – reduced salt levels. According to the Heart Foundation, which has been working in partnership with bread companies since 2007 to gradually reduce the sodium in our loaves, a standard white sliced loaf today contains around 25% less salt than it once did.
Lower salt intake is a key factor in reducing high blood pressure, which is a major risk for heart disease.
But aside from lower sodium levels, what else should we be looking for when buying bread from the supermarket?
To help decode the shelves, the Herald asked two registered dietitians – Julia Sekula and Lily Henderson from Dietitians New Zealand – what really matters when choosing a loaf. Their answers may surprise you.
Silver Ferns coach Dame Noeline Taurua will return to coach the side next year. Photo / Photosport
This story originally ran on November 7, 2025.
The Silver Ferns complaints which triggered the standing-down of Dame Noeline Taurua have been revealed.
Taurua was stood down in September, days out from the Taini Jamison Trophy series against South Africa, but has since been reinstated.
It followed anonymous player complaints stemming from a training camp in Sydney in January. The Players Association put these complaints to Netball New Zealand, who eventually launched a review, led by former New Zealand Cricket high-performance chief Bryan Stronach.
Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan read parts of the Stronach report on-air on Friday.
Du Plessis-Allan said the players had numerous issues with Taurua’s leadership.
She said the first problem was “fear and psychological safety”.
Reading from the report, Du Plessis-Allan said: “A strong theme was a sense of fear within the environment. Players talked about being scared to speak up, scared to make mistakes, scared to ask questions and scared to be themselves.”
Next-generation wealth: Many of the adult children from New Zealand’s wealthiest families are following their parents’ footsteps, while some have branched out and are running their own businesses. Image / NZME
This story originally ran on April 29, 2025.
One glance at the Instagram accounts of some of the country’s young-and-intergenerational wealthy and it’s obvious there’s no shortage of dosh. Social media is full of Kiwi lovelies partying in Ibiza, skiing at Whistler, holidaying in the Med or, closer to home, helicoptering to the exclusive Tara Iti golf course north of Auckland before jetting down to Queenstown for some R & R at Ayrburn.
They’re living life on the back of billions of dollars worth of baby boomer wealth, which will one day pass to them, accumulated through property development and investment, farming, retail, hospitality, transport, food manufacturing, packaging, retirement villages and technology. Their surnames are synonymous with success – Hart, Spencer, Farmer, Todd, Fletcher, Fay, Richwhite, Friedlander, Masfen, Kirkpatrick.
Together, they hold enormous wealth. Many of them are UHNWIs – an elite group who qualify as an “ultra-high net worth individual”. Data from global real estate consultants Knight Frank shows that 2587 Kiwis qualified for UHNWI status, wealth of more than $52 million, in 2023. That number is expected to rise to 3285 by 2028.
But even the trust-fund babies are expected to do something with their lives, particularly the Kiwi ones. Some of the second-and-third-generation descendants head off to do their own thing, or gain university qualifications before returning to learn the ways of the family business. Still others turn their parents’ multimillion-dollar fortune into a billion-dollar one.
Jane Phare and Anne Gibson look at New Zealand’s ‘heir apparent’ generation to find out what they’ve done with their lives and careers.
Beauden Barrett sports the Gallagher Insurance logo on the All Blacks’ shorts. Photo / Photosport
This story originally ran on October 29, 2025.
On Monday night in Chicago, most of the All Blacks squad ventured out to watch another fabled sports team. But while the likes of Ardie Savea, Caleb Clarke, and Rieko Ioane enjoyed a night of fun, near enough courtside, at the Chicago Bulls’ NBA game against the Atlanta Hawks, there was one noticeable absence.
Back at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, All Blacks playmaker Beauden Barrett sat on a small stage in a slightly cramped third-floor, low-ceiling room, speaking to a private audience that included some of this city’s most important business people.
The fewer than 30 in attendance heard directly from Barrett, Anton Lienert-Brown, and Quinn Tupaea about the significance of the All Blacks’ jersey, the team’s legacy, and their prospects for this weekend’s test against Ireland at Soldier Field.
The trio spoke candidly, away from the normal media spotlight, in a critically important 30 minutes for New Zealand Rugby. Afterwards, Barrett dined privately with the group.
In Barrett, New Zealand Rugby was presenting one of its biggest superstars to the organisation’s newest sponsor – Chicago-based Gallagher Insurance.
How did the All Blacks pull off one of the swiftest and most lucrative sponsorship moves in decades? Shayne Currie meets the powerful American businessmen behind a multimillion-dollar deal and reveals how one superstar name helped get it across the line.
A young woman, Ms Z, alleges that former Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming groomed her for sex at a sports club. McSkimming says the relationship was a mutual and consensual affair. Image / NZME illustration
This story originally ran on December 2, 2025.
There was an unexpected knock at the door. When the young woman answered to find a senior detective waiting outside, she soon realised he wanted to talk about Jevon McSkimming.
For years, she had sent anonymous emails making serious allegations of a sexual nature about McSkimming, while he kept climbing the ranks to become the second-most-powerful police officer in the country.
The 52-year-old was now on the cusp being the next Police Commissioner.
So while the detective’s visit in May 2024 was a surprise, the young woman thought he might ask if she wanted to make a formal complaint against McSkimming.
“He said ‘I think you know [what this is about]’,” the woman told the Herald.
“Then he took my phone out of my hand while I was standing at the door … and I realised they were going to arrest me instead.”
The detective had read the emails, and did want to talk to her about Jevon McSkimming: the Deputy Commissioner had made a formal complaint against her.
In November, senior Herald reporter Jared Savage broke the story of how police top brass prosecuted a young woman for sending anonymous emails about Jevon McSkimming, instead of investigating her allegations of sexual misconduct against the deputy commissioner.
This is Ms Z’s story.
Michael Morrah speaks to a man who says buying drugs on private Facebook groups is easier than making an online grocery order.
This story originally ran on August 14, 2025.
Criminals are using code words to sell handguns, shotguns and assault rifles on private social media groups in a trading system one man says is “like shopping on Temu”.
Detective Senior Sergeant Kepal Richards from the national criminal investigation group told the Herald the illegal sale of firearms on social media platforms is “extremely concerning”, and believes drug dealers are employing marketing tactics to target young people.
A former social media drug buyer, who still has underworld connections, claimed the number of private Facebook groups offering all sorts of illegal items has taken off.
“You’re looking at assault rifles, shotguns, modified shotguns, handguns. In the early stages [of social media gun sales], you have people with catalogues of what you’re after. They just put up code words,” he told the Herald.
The Herald’s contact, who asked not to be identified, said code words like “hairclip”, “clip” or “bunny” are used to advertise and discuss firearms online in an attempt to avoid scrutiny from police and detection by social media companies.
Richards says new drugs are also emerging for sale on social media sites in New Zealand like the opiate-laced fizzy drink known as “lean” or “purple drank”.
He said it was part of a wider trend where the quantities and types of drugs peddled on social media were expanding.
Anna Mowbray: “How we were raised is such a testament to who we are now as people.” Photo / Carson Bluck
This story originally ran on February 8, 2025.
“People think I’m a bit of a Scrooge,” says billionaire Anna Mowbray, relating a story about how one of her children had taken an interest in tennis at school a couple of years ago and wanted mum to buy him a racquet.
She was having none of that and was unhappy when she found out the nanny later bought him one for about $50.
“He can borrow a tennis racquet until he’s proven he loves the sport enough that he’s going to be committed to it, and that the tennis racquet is actually something that he’s going to respect and care about,” says Mowbray.
“I took the tennis racquet away and he had to keep borrowing one.
“It’s the principle. I probably go to the extreme, but I expect them to have a hole in the toe of their shoes before they get a new pair.”
Mowbray is part of a tight-knit family that now tops New Zealand’s rich list. According to The NBR List in 2024, the Mowbray family is worth $20 billion, a fortune built on more than two decades of establishing and operating the Zuru toy company by siblings Mat, Anna and Nick.
Anna exited the toy business in 2023 to pursue new business dreams – while NBR did not estimate her own specific wealth, it has been reported previously she received a significant payout. She is considered by many to be New Zealand’s richest businesswoman.
So, picking up on the tennis racquet story and her earlier comment, I ask her directly: Is she indeed a bit of a Scrooge?
“I’m definitely a Scrooge! And I’m okay with it,” she says.
Mowbray sits down with Shayne Currie over lunch to discuss family, money and business values and the importance of creating a new generation of Kiwi leaders.
These five MPs have the most valuable property portfolios of anyone in Parliament.
This story originally ran on November 24, 2025.
The combined property interests of all New Zealand MPs are worth $379 million a Herald investigation has found.
That’s an average of $3m across each of our 123 Members of Parliament.
And despite the rumours, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s portfolio doesn’t top the list as the most lavish.
Why does it matter? MPs make decisions that can heavily impact property values – which are often enmeshed with their own personal and family fortunes.
That’s why under Parliamentary rules they have to declare the existence of all business, property and other legal interests for “transparency and confidence”.
So, who are the top five biggest property owners in Parliament? What types of properties did they choose – and why does it matter? Data Editor Chris Knox reports.
Mark says every one of his clients is different. Photo / Stock image
This story originally ran on November 25, 2025.
Mark McGinty (not his real name), 55, is a family man based in Lower Hutt. He’s married and he’s a father. He has a regular fulltime job. On the side, he’s also an escort and boudoir photographer. This is his story, as told to Varsha Anjali.
Mark Richardson has moved from behind a microphone to behind a desk as an investment advisor at Forsyth Barr. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
This story originally ran on October 4, 2025.
On the 24th floor of a shiny Auckland high-rise, Mark Richardson is keeping a lot of secrets, most of them other people’s. He’s suited and booted, not quite a navy-wrapped James Bond, but his baby blues sure do pop when he goes monochromatic. Maybe he’s had his colours done. I should have asked.
The secrets belonging to other people are on the floor above us. Shame, because the Waitematā Harbour views are just so shabby from level 23. I bet they’re quite nice on level 24. Not that we will ever know because if we went up there, Richardson might have to kill us. On brand for the man once known to his friends as Rigor Mortis.
Don’t worry. After “getting the arse” from Today FM, The Block, The Project and The AM Show, Richardson wasn’t forced to turn to a life of crime. Although, if you’d had that sort of run, the kind that basically ends a 20-year career, you might consider it. No, secrets come with the territory in the finance world, he says. People with money – or at least those who want to make money – don’t want every Tom, Dick and Herald journalist knowing their business.
This is a new world for Richardson. And a long way from his 38 tests as a dogged left-handed opening batter for New Zealand, and from his time as the go-to right-leaning broadcaster willing to ‘tell it like it is’.
Two years on, the world looks a little different for Richardson and as he tells Bridget Jones, rebuilding his life hasn’t been easy.
Personal finance expert Martin Hawes has written his 24th book, Retirement Ready, and is starting to ease back on his workload to allow him more time for outdoor pursuits like open-water swimming. Photo / George Heard
This story originally ran on April 5, 2025.
Martin Hawes is looking out from his house at the waves on Christchurch’s picturesque Sumner Beach and thinking about his career. At 72 he’s not retired but he knows that one day, who knows when, it will come to an end.
“Come to an end” are words that are hard for him to say. And then, surprisingly, he uses the word “failure”, astonishing coming from someone well known in New Zealand as a financial author, speaker, columnist, TV and radio commentator, and with 35 years’ experience as a financial adviser to thousands of Kiwis.
“They say all political careers end in failure,” he says. “I think all careers end in failure.”
He’ll think that about his own career when the time comes, he suspects.
Hawes, a finance guru, has written a “warts and all” book on how to plan for a comfortable retirement. He talks to Jane Phare about the struggle to leave behind his career, the mistakes he made during his retirement wind-down and how ill health hit him just after he cancelled his medical insurance.
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