Opinion polls have shown the Clark Government trailing the main opposition National Party for several months, although the gap narrowed to 6.5 percentage points at the start of September. The announcement came amidst a scandal involving political donations to Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ New Zealand First Party.

Prime Minister Helen Clark appointed Winston Peters as foreign minister in 2005 in return for support of her minority Labour Party government, and she has been under pressure to suspend him until questions over unexplained donations to his populist New Zealand First Party are resolved.

New Zealand hockey manager Kevin Marr was ordered by International Olympic Committee officials to watch the must-win match against Germany from the grandstand as punishment for three players wearing black undies beneath white shorts in an earlier game. Under the Olympic field hockey rules, shorts and undies must be the same colour.

New Zealand had previously said it would allow Commodore Frank Bainimarama, Fiji’s self-appointed prime minister, and his delegation a transit visa to go to Niue via Auckland, but stopped short of allowing the Fiji group to visit New Zealand after the regional meeting.

The censorship was uncovered when a visitor to the tourist town found that his searches for “Whakatane” were rejected, with the Freenet website offering the explanation that “the content is filtered so this service is for legitimate use”.

Glenn Martin, a former research biochemist, has devoted almost 30 years to inventing a jetpack that flies for up to 30 minutes, 100 times longer than its predecessor, the Bell Rocket Belt.