Southland has been left without a permanent full-time urologist, with Health New Zealand transferring patients as far as Christchurch and paying locums $3000 a day to plug the gap — while internal documents show bosses rated the situation as an "extreme" risk and warned of the potential "collapse

Today's weather brought to you by petsmart.nz Invercargill starts Thursday 1 October mostly cloudy, with a top of 17°C after a mild overnight low around 11°C. Northwesterlies are gusty at times, and there's a chance of a shower from the afternoon. Morning A

Sean Withy leads a 23-man Southland Stags squad into Rugby Park on Friday night when the SBS Bank Southland Stags host Northland in the Hetaraka "Peter" Tetai Trophy — kick-off 7.10pm. Withy wears the captaincy armband for what shapes as a fortress test on home turf. Nine players

A 545-page book about Sir Tim Shadbolt's final years is being launched in Invercargill this Saturday — in the city he spent decades putting on the map. 'Shadbolt: Tim's Final Chapter' arrives at the Invercargill Central Library on 50 Dee Street at 1pm on Saturday

Four million dollars into a $21 million repair budget, and not a single fix has been made to Invercargill's crumbling civic headquarters. The Civic Building on Esk Street — several decades old and struggling with water ingress, failing heating and cooling systems, and outdated electrics — shed 167 of its

The government's books are in better shape than expected, with Treasury forecasting a significantly smaller deficit and a path back to surplus that Finance Minister Nicola Willis called "within a hair's breadth" of breaking even a year ahead of schedule. The Pre-election Economic and

Cloud and a brisk westerly early, then a sunny afternoon with a high of 13°C in Invercargill on Wednesday 30 September.

Invercargill MP Penny Simmonds has sent a message of support to the local farming community as rain continues to drench the Southland province. "I have to say, I've been stopped in my tracks by just how much water is sitting across local farmland. "The paddocks are