Watch: Experience vs diversity, gang home detention sentences increase and cable car rescue

Don’t have time to read the headlines? Watch the Focus Morning Bulletin presented by Cheree Kinnear.

Experience v diversity

Michael Woodhouse says being male has cost him – and many other National MPs – a higher slot on the party list.

The Dunedin-based List MP has stepped off the party’s list, saying the ranking he was offered showed he wasn’t in line for a ministerial position.

The former Cabinet minister, who has served National for 15 years, says there was a contest between diversity and experience – and in his case, diversity won.

Home detention sentences increase

The number of gang-affiliated offenders sentenced to home detention has increased by nearly 60 per cent in six years.

Department of Corrections figures show 623 people with gang links have been put on home detention in the past financial year.

National is putting it down to the Government wanting to reduce the prison population by 30 per cent, saying it filters through to the justice system and results in more people serving home detention for serious offences.

Operations on hold

The use of surgical mesh to treat a common childbirth injury has been suspended because of safety concerns.

The Health Ministry has recommended the pause while improvements are made – including tailored training and certification for surgeons.

Urinary incontinence operations involving mesh for around 100 women will now be put on hold.

Between 3 and 4 per cent of women have suffered complications caused by the medical device.

Cable car rescue

The remaining people on a cable car dangling hundreds of metres over a ravine in northwest Pakistan have been rescued.

Emergency workers used a helicopter to winch five children to safety overnight, but as darkness fell, the operation was called off.

Rescuers began a ground-based mission for the three people remaining on board.

Authorities, this morning confirmed all had been rescued.