Stu Oldham

It could cost between $50 million and $70 million to upgrade the lower Waitaki electricity grid to cope with irrigation for the dairy boom and a new cement works, Transpower says.

The busy hands of the workers at Dunedin's Mitre 10 Mega suggested the new GST rate might be 15% better for manicurists.

If anyone knows what people are saying about the Dunedin City Council elections, it is an ever-chatty cabbie. In the first of a series, Stu Oldham talks to taxi driver Jim Coxon.

New Zealand's incongruous and confusing give-way rule will be kicked to the kerb - but drivers should not expect safer intersections to translate to lower insurance premiums.

Part of the roof above a central Dunedin design store was reduced to a tangle of mangled iron when the top of a double-brick wall fell from beside a disused movie theatre on Wednesday night.

It is rare to find a group of Dunedin commuter bus drivers that is grateful for narrow roads, short bus stops, traffic works, and safety cones.

Truck drivers say they are sick of being blamed for stock effluent deposited on roads and want the problem stopped at the farm gate.

Southern investors are pitching a package to keep Living Cell Technologies' Auckland Island pigs project on track to bring what Mayor Tim Shadbolt claimed yesterday could be worth $3 billion and at least 1000 jobs to Invercargill and Southland. 

Smelly luggage may have forced a flight from Invercargill to Christchurch to divert to Dunedin in the second incident involving a mysterious smell on an Air New Zealand Christchurch-Invercargill service.

Dunedin's biggest commuter bus companies want to accept Transport Minister Steven Joyce's guarantee they will not make a loss if a cut to the SuperGold Card Free Travel Scheme is approved - but they both want more detail.

Transport Minister Steven Joyce guarantees Dunedin bus companies will be compensated so they can continue to be part of the SuperGold card free transport scheme.

Multibillion-dollar plans for a lignite-to-diesel conversion plant and urea plant in Southland are so significant the Government could fast-track their resource consents, Gore District Council mayor Tracy Hicks says.

Controversial road-user charges tax the productive sector to subsidise consumption, Road Transport Forum chief executive Ken Shirley said.

Dunedin's largest commuter bus company is considering using biodiesel, but it wants to be sure it uses an environmentally sustainable product to match the city's hills.

New Zealand Defence Force personnel and the Otago Southland Regional Employer Support Council met in Dunedin yesterday to discuss getting young people who succeed in defence force youth programmes into meaningful employment.

Dunedin MP-in-waiting Hilary Calvert sympathises with calls for disgraced MP David Garrett to leave Parliament and would prefer to join an Act New Zealand Party united behind leader Rodney Hide.

Contact Energy lost more than 2000 Dunedin customers in the same quarter it controversially hiked prices by more than 9%, the latest Economic Development Ministry electricity price survey suggests.

Rates, council spending and transparency were to the fore when five Dunedin City Council Mosgiel-Taieri Ward candidates pitched their policies at Outram last night.