Midday Report Essentials for Friday 21 August 2026

More than half the vineyards in Gisborne are being ripped up, after New Zealand's largest wine producer cut its supply of grapes from the region, GisVin general manager Hamish Jackson told Guyon Espiner the local sector faces a loss of about $19.5m. Plenty of doom and gloom out there on the economic front. But BNZ has just put out numbers saying we may have hit peak misery. BNZ's chief economist Mike Jones talks to Guyon Espiner. Education Minister Erica Stanford has announced $31 million to correct what she called the "failed experiment" of open-plan classrooms at 90 schools. But the New Zealand Institute of Architects is challenging the Ministers' claim. Guyon Espiner talks to the Institute's president James Blackburne.