October
Having emerged from a mini-lockdown, New Zealand has a Covid general election looming on 17 October. Political leaders are on the road campaigning, albeit in a socially-distanced way.
The month started with a ferocious wildfire in the Mackenzie Basin.
“Like winning the lotto” — that’s how a Lake Ōhau couple described discovering their pets alive and well days after they were separated by fire.
Residents frantically tried to find and bring their pets with them as they fled the embers and flames that swept through the village on 5 October.
National leader Judith Collins spoke to her maker before casting her ballot on 4 October but refused to share what was discussed.
Collins and her husband David Wong Tung cast their advance votes at a polling station at St Thomas Church in Tāmaki, ahead of the 17 October election.
Just a day later Collins faced criticism from within over policy decisions.
An email leaked to Newshub showed National’s Auckland Council spokesperson Denise Lee criticising a policy announced today to review Auckland Council.
Lee called it a “highly problematic idea”, a “nightmare” and “another working group” and said bypassing her was “incredibly poor form and displays a shockingly bad example of poor culture”, while another National Party member said Collins was consistently “making up policy on the hoof” and creating division.
More campaign controversy followed for National Party leader Judith Collins who described obesity as a weakness and saying people should not “blame systems for personal choices”.
The Labour Party wins a landslide in the General Election on October 17.
With 64 seats, Labour will be the first party able to govern alone since MMP was introduced in 1996.
Judith Collins concedes defeat, but says the National Party will make a robust opposition.
A strong performance for ACT on 8 percent who get 10 MPs and the Green Party on 7.8 percent bring in 10 MPs.
The Māori Party is back in the House with Rawiri Waititi winning Waiariki from Labour’s Tāmati Coffey by more than 400 votes.
And the show is over for Winston Peters.
Peters is frequently a political kingmaker after elections, but this time NZ First has not made it into Parliament.
November
Napier is smashed by a weather bomb on 10 November. Flood waters sweep through many Napier streets, prompting evacuations, rescues and causing widespread damage, and a local state of emergency is declared after a “one-in-250-year storm.”
The result is conclusive - the kākāpō wins bird of the year for an unprecedented second time on 16 November.
The victory came despite skulduggery and a desperate attempt to steal the election by the shadowy forces of the little spotted kiwi lobby.
New climate change research suggests that the world is already past the point of no return for global warming on 13 November.
The study, published in Scientific Reports found that even if human-induced greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced to zero, global temperatures may continue to rise for centuries afterwards.
But prominent scientists from around the world, including Victoria University’s professor James Renwick, challenged the report’s conclusions.
Aotearoa’s first transgender Miss New Zealand contestant was the star turn at the first transgender awareness event held in New Plymouth.
Arielle Keil made history in November when she won the title of Miss Intercontinental New Zealand.
David Millane, the father of murdered British backpacker Grace dies on 19 November.
Millane who had been diagnosed with cancer died in his hometown in England.
Millane travelled to New Zealand after his daughter disappeared in December 2018, on the eve of her 22nd birthday, while she was on her OE.
The Speaker releases correspondence between himself, the Clerk’s office and Māori Party MPs over the row that blew up in Parliament.
Trevor Mallard and the Māori Party accuse each other of grandstanding after the Māori Party’s two MPs walked out of the first session of the new Parliament 26 November.
First it was roaming horses. Now Ōpōtiki has its own wandering emu, who could be seen dodging cars, kids on bikes and local law enforcement.
Nine hundred hectares of land at the foot of the Remarkables Range near Queenstown is given to the Queen Elizabeth II National Trust.
Remarkables Station owners Dick and Jillian Jardine have donated the land to the trust to be held in perpetuity.
December
Māori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer pulls no punches in her maiden speech 4 December, describing early New Zealand governments as “monsters, murderers and rapists”.
The huge machine that will excavate two City Rail Link tunnels from Mt Eden to the CBD is unveiled 4 December.
The 910-tonne, $13.5 million German-engineered machine will start work in April next year.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has committed the government and the public sector to going carbon-neutral by 2025, as she declared a climate emergency.
Sun, sea and soil: these are the key ingredients for growing New Zealand’s largest-ever medical cannabis crop.
The first seedlings are now in the ground along the salt-laden and sunny slopes of Kēkerengū — just north of Kaikōura.
Read part one (January to May) and part two (June to September) of our review of the news of 2020.