After two days of deliberations, jurors were unable to reach a verdict in the trial of a South Auckland man who was accused of murder despite Crown prosecutors and the defence having agreed he wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger.Justice…

Shirley Corles-Davis is still angry at being asked by a property developer if she wanted to sell her house just 24 hours after it was damaged in the Papatoetoe tornado.A freak twister ripped through the area on Saturday morning,…

Economists at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia have forecast that Australia's official cash rate will rise in November 2022, well ahead of the RBA's 2024 timeline.

CBA data crunchers cited strong labour conditions and wage growth to force the Reserve Bank to lift the nation's interest rates from its current historic low of 0.1 per cent.

The revised prediction comes as Australia's property market roars, with cheap credit seeing some areas rise at the fastest month-on-month rate in 33 years.

READ MORE: Australia's economy officially above pre-pandemic levels

"The Australian labour market has tightened at a phenomenal pace and underutilisation in May was at its lowest since early 2013," CBA Head of Australian Economics Gareth Aird said.

"The forward looking indicators of labour demand are very strong yet labour supply is constrained, which means the labour market will continue to tighten very quickly and wages growth will accelerate."

The bank now forecasts the RBA to lift interest rates from 0.1 per cent to 0.5 per cent in November 2022, before peaking at 1.25 per cent in the third quarter of 2023.

READ MORE: Interest rates on hold at historic low 0.1 per cent

"For the past six months CBA's economic forecasts for the Australian economy have been at odds with the RBA's '2024 at the earliest' forward guidance on the cash rate given the strength of the economic data," Mr Aird said.

"Our message has been consistent and unswerving: the labour market will tighten quickly and this means that wages and inflation will lift, particularly because the supply of labour is constrained.

"There are scenarios that could see the RBA pull the rate hike trigger earlier than November 2022, particularly if they tweak their reaction function because it becomes irrefutable that wages growth is on a path to 3 per cent per annum – the rate of growth they have targeted."

READ MORE: Risk of earlier RBA rate hike after cash splash

The prediction comes on the back of what has been a near-miraculous recovery for the Australian economy.

Despite unemployment peaking at 7.4 per cent in July 2020, it is now hovering just above 5 per cent.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has said Australia recovered better than any other advanced economy in the world.

"We saw Australia ahead of any advanced economy in the world see its economy bigger than it was going into the pandemic," Mr Frydenberg said.

"Australians know we are still in the middle of a once in a century pandemic. There is a long way to go. But the Australian economy is recovering strongly."

You can find out more details about how to book your vaccine through the Federal Government health site here.

By Andrew McRae of RNZ A survivor of abuse while in the adolescent unit at Lake Alice in the 1970s has ended up spending 40 of his 60 years in jail.He has given evidence at the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care in Auckland….

“It’s not fair.”Six-year-old Eva Sallabanks sometimes whispers those words as she suffers through her fourth round of chemotherapy for a disease she thought she had already beaten.After a six-month battle against acute myeloid…

COVID LATEST* The events affected by Wellington’s Covid-19 scare * Te Papa unsure if it will have enough staff to reopen after Sydney Covid case * Watch: ‘Damn noise’ – Covid alert interrupts MPs in the House * Wellington…

Police have confirmed human remains found at a landfill site are missing Melbourne mother Ju Zhang.

Ms Zhang was last seen at her Winchester Avenue home in Epping on February 1 before she disappeared.

"Following an examination by the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine and determination by the Coroner, it can be confirmed that the human remains located at Wollert on Friday 18 June, 2021 have been formally identified as 33-year-old missing woman Ju Zhang from Epping," Victoria Police said in a statement today.

READ MORE: Police to scour rubbish tip in search for missing Melbourne mother Ju Zhang

Police began a search for the 33-year-old at the Wollert landfill site on Bridge Inn Road on June 15.

After three days of scouring the location, officers found what they believed to be human remains.

The coroner was notified of the discovery and performed a post mortem.

Ms Zhang has an eight-year-old son and was reported missing by a friend on February 2.

READ MORE: Police scour creek in search of missing Melbourne mother Ju 'Kelly' Zhang after partner's arrest

Ms Zhang's partner, Joon Seong Tan, 35, has since been charged with her murder.

Mr Tan was arrested on February 10 after police found him at Melbourne Airport.

The case is before the courts.

Police have asked anyone with information that may help the investigation to contact CrimeStoppers on 1800 333 000.

An official apology ceremony for dawn raids targeting Pasifika people in the 1970s is among events planned for the weekend that had now been postponed because of the latest Covid-19 scare.It came as Wellington moved into alert level…

Te Papa is unsure how many of its 600 staff will be required to self-isolate, and whether there will be enough people left on deck to reopen the museum after a deep clean. A traveller from Sydney who visited Te Papa on Saturday…

More than 20 Papatoetoe homes are uninhabitable and entry into a further 60 homes is restricted after the tornado that ripped through South Auckland. The 251 properties damaged in Saturday morning’s freak weather had been assessed…