New Zealand

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) said the operation was one of Australia's most significant efforts targeting child exploitation.

Investigators identified links through the online forums to alleged child sex offenders residing in Europe, Asia, United States and Canada, and New Zealand, with 146 international referrals made as a result of this investigation, AFP said.

In a statement, the Ministry said the person works at the facility and is not a returnee, so are considered a community case.

The case was reported to the Ministry this afternoon.

It said the person had been tested regularly. They were most recently swabbed on 3 November and returned a negative test the next day.

But the staff member then developed symptoms on 5 November and was tested again that day. That test has returned a positive result.

Contacts of the worker are being traced, isolated and tested.

Mahuta, who has an indigenous Maori facial tattoo, replaces populist Winston Peters, whose New Zealand First party flunked in the 5-million nation's October 17 election.

Ardern appointed Grant Robertson as her new deputy premier, making him the first openly gay person to hold the position. Robertson, a chief strategist in Ardern's election campaign, will also remain New Zealand's finance minister.

Ardern's new 20-member cabinet is comprised of five Maori, three LGBT+ members and two with Pacific island links.

Friday's results showed 65.2% of voters supported the End of Life Choice Act 2019 coming into force as a new law.

It will allow terminally ill people, with less than six months to live, the opportunity to choose assisted dying if approved by two doctors.

The referendum is binding and the law will come into effect in November 2021.

The results do not include an estimated 480,000 special votes, including postal and overseas ballots, so the final outcome will not be confirmed until next Friday. But with such strong support, the decision is not expected to change.

Ardern says Cabinet met via Zoom to review the Auckland's alert level and that all signs point to the city's cluster being under control.

She says there were 179 cases attached to the cluster but that there has been no new cases within that cluster for 10 days now.

"There has only been one case in the past two weeks and only five people from the cluster are yet to recover."

She says there is now a 95 percent probability of the cluster being eliminated, according to research.

"I know for many, this one has felt harder, especially for Aucklanders."

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Auckland will remain at level 2.5 and the rest of the country at level 2.

Cabinet will review Auckland's alert level settings on Monday 21st September.

"With a view to increase gathering limits for Auckland if we are in a similar position of containing the cluster, if the change is agreed on, it will come into effect on the 23rd of September," says Ardern.

The nest, originally the size of a two-person tent, was discovered in the Karekare beach area of the regional park.

Hanging high in a tree, the nest is built from a collection of sticks, bark and leaves.

Auckland Council said it would have been home to tens of thousands of wasps.

The nest is believed to have been expanding for up to two years to its final size of about 1m x 2m x 2.5m.

There was no media conference today.

In a statement, the Health Ministry said both of today's new cases had an epidemiological link to an existing case and they were both associated with the bereavement events sub-cluster that was linked to the Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship group.

The ministry said one of the new cases is a student at Sunnyvale School in Henderson.

Health Minister Chris Hipkins said the government would not use any information collected through testing for immigration purposes.

"Regardless of your personal circumstances, if you're asked to get a test or you're in that group that's at greater risk, we won't use that information to punish you in some other way - and I can't state that enough," Hipkins said.

However Collins, who represents Manukau ward, said Pacific people remained fearful of getting tested because of what had happened historically to people who overstayed their visas, such as dawn raids.

There were also two new cases in managed isolation.

There was no media conference today. In a written statement, the Health Ministry said 10 of the new community cases were clearly epidemiologically linked to the Auckland cluster.

It said six cases were linked to the Mt Roskill Evangelical Church, including four within the same household and two who attended church services.

Four other cases are contacts of previously reported confirmed cases.