Yesterday housing minister Megan Woods trumpeted a grand total of 12 families helped into homes by the new Progressive Home Ownership Scheme. As Danyl Mclauchlan exclusively reveals, that’s not the government’s only hyper-focused new support plan. Promising “a government that delivers for all New Zealanders”, housing, energy and resource minister Dr Megan Woods has launched … Read more
For all its faults, writes Danyl Mclauchlan (whose new book Tranquillity and Ruin is itself published this week), the Labour-turned-ACT politician’s 1996 books speaks for something that now seems almost old-fashioned: a group of true believers that had a vision of how the world works. Read Richard Prebble’s reflections on I’ve Been Thinking, 25 years … Read more
Danyl McLauchlan reviews Stuart Ritchie’s Science Fictions, which outlines the staggering systemic flaws in the funding and publication of scientific papers. Back in August of 2006 a number of New Zealand scientists were caught up in a media controversy about whether Māori had a genetic predisposition towards violent crime. It kicked off when an epidemiologist … Read more
Summer reissue: Some observers are questioning whether there are sufficient Facebook livestreams to support the goal, writes chief caring correspondent Danyl Mclauchlan. First published November 24, 2020. Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its members – click here to learn more about how you … Read more
After 24 years in business the storied, parliament-adjacent Astoria cafe is to close. Danyl Mclauchlan pays tribute to a hotbed of political intrigue that was ultimately too beautiful for this world. How well I remember my first visit. It was high summer in Wellington, the late 1990s, and I met some friends for a picnic … Read more
Shipping delays mean bookstores are placing massive one-off orders rather than sitting back to see what sells. They’ve gone huge on Barack Obama’s memoir A Promised Land – there are probably enough copies in the country to dam Cook Strait. Luckily, Danyl Mclauchlan writes, it is in fact good. I somehow forgot that Obama could … Read more
Some observers are questioning whether there are sufficient Facebook livestreams to support the goal, writes chief caring correspondent Danyl Mclauchlan Jacinda Ardern has responded to a surge in house prices, concerns about carbon emissions and calls for action on child poverty by pledging to care more about these issues. The pledge comes after a week … Read more
Last night Jacinda Ardern and the Labour Party won a historic victory, changing the shape of NZ politics. Danyl Mclauchlan writes on what took place, and what comes next. A few days before the end of the campaign Jacinda came to my university. The crowd filled the central hub, spilling out into the courtyard. Wellington … Read more
Labour’s winning strategy is built on rhetoric that seems to promise real change but never quite delivers, writes Danyl Mclauchlan. Perhaps soon it can give itself permission to do something truly transformational. There is a pit of doom major parties in New Zealand can fall into, when their soft centre supporters abandon them for their … Read more
More than 40 years after he first arrived in parliament, Winston Peters is facing, barring a miracle, the end of the line, with his New Zealand First Party polling under 2%. But what a political career it has been. Danyl Mclauchlan traces the life and times of one of the most compelling and enduring characters … Read more
The public hated National’s politicisation of the coronavirus crisis the first time around. So why is the party doubling down on it now? So far the National Party leadership team of Judith Collins and Gerry Brownlee has been a lot milder than everyone expected. Judith Collins has arched her eyebrows and reprised her ‘Crusher’ character, … Read more
After Todd Muller’s shock resignation, a crushing electoral defeat for National looks all but assured. But is a historically weak opposition really something for the left to celebrate, asks Danyl Mclauchlan. It probably doesn’t matter who takes over as leader of the National Party. Todd Muller’s sudden resignation after weeks of internal leaks, infighting, scandals, … Read more
Clare Curran’s interview has resurfaced concerns about the toxic nature of parliamentary politics. But while politics shouldn’t be toxic, or misogynistic, or cruel, for the system to be work, nor should it be nice, writes Danyl Mclauchlan. Two high-profile MPs are leaving parliament at the end of this term: National’s Paula Bennett and Labour’s Clare … Read more
The conspicuous scuppering of government plans is designed to win support for social conservative voters. Unfortunately for NZ First, the evidence suggests it isn’t working: they’re undermining their own government for no gain, argues Danyl Mclauchlan. The Serious Fraud Office is investigating the New Zealand First Foundation, an organisation linked to the New Zealand First … Read more
It’s a grim time of year in Wellington, but not only the bleak weather is to blame, writes Danyl Mclauchlan. Then there was the bad weather. Wellington feels like it really only has two seasons, which stretch from solstice to solstice. For the first half of each year it is autumn, with maybe a few … Read more
In her latest masterpiece, Hilary Mantel finds patterns and rational systems – the dynamic between history and literature, or politics and law, or propaganda and art – and places something malevolent, chaotic and non-rational at the heart of them, writes Danyl Mclachlan. It begins where the last book ended. Anne Boleyn is dead. Her attendants … Read more
Charismatic leadership has historically been less important to New Zealand voters on the right. But when the country was thrown into crisis the old rules suddenly no longer applied, writes Danyl Mclauchlan. And just like that the National Party has a new leader. Todd Muller has replaced Simon Bridges because of profound policy and ideological … Read more
Yes they’re annoying and mostly wrong, but the Covid sceptics fulfill a vital societal role, argues Danyl Mclauchlan. Most contrarian coronavirus theories go something like this. The response to the virus – the lockdowns, global panic, border closures, economic meltdown – is a huge over-reaction. Governments have made decisions based on scientific models forecasting mass … Read more
‘I feel like it means something to be a New Zealander in these circumstances, that it means something that we’re all trapped here together, self-isolating at the end of the world.’ On the third Saturday of the lockdown we saw the naked bus driver. We were standing by the road chatting to our neighbour, observing … Read more
For all its petitions and protests, the left is too invested in its own privilege to upend ‘hypercapitalism’, Thomas Piketty argues in his latest book Capital and Ideology – so it’s time to conjure something new. It is a very long book. I started it some time in late December when the electoral defeat of … Read more
Danyl McLauchlan writes about strange energy of preparing for level four, and the narrow new life which has emerged in the shadow of Covid-19. We start by setting up our home workspaces, covering the kitchen table with such a thick mass of black cables and USB hubs that the table itself is barely visible. I … Read more
Kevin Ward, an urgent primary care physician, is behind a petition urging the government to shift to the highest alert level. Danyl Mclauchlan spoke to him. On Saturday the prime minister revealed the nation’s four-level Covid-19 alert system. We’re currently on level two, which means, among other things, that people aged 70 and over should … Read more
The donations scandal looks very different if we see ourselves not as Labour supporters or National voters but as citizens of a country whose politicians are selling us all out, argues Danyl Mclauchlan in the conclusion to our series on electoral funding, Money Talks. This series is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join Members to … Read more
SkyCity yesterday pulled the plug on hosting philosopher and academic Peter Singer’s event after disability rights advocates expressed strong objections to his views. They’re right to be angry with him, but he nevertheless deserves to be heard, argues Danyl Mclauchlan. A thoughtful piece on The Spinoff yesterday explored the disabled community’s reaction to moral philosopher … Read more
Winston Peters was once the one who could plausibly rail against the self-interest of the establishment. Today that seems laughable, So where are the real critics offering reform, asks Danyl Mclauchlan. Politics is messy. It’s chaotic; most things happen for complex combinations of reasons and these are not always obvious, and the best explanations you … Read more
How does MMP work – and how can you make the most of your two ticks? Danyl Mclauchlan has your crucial election year primer. It’s an election year in New Zealand. Again. Our political calendar always starts with a sequence of set pieces, and these intensify going into a campaign year, starting with Ratana. After … Read more
I thought that by being super-informed about the US political process and arguing about it online I could influence the outcome, somehow. Which, obviously, I couldn’t, writes Danyl Mclauchlan. I’ve been addicted to US politics for most of my life. It’s an easy drug for political nerds to get hooked on: American elections are very … Read more
Eight years after publication, Walter Isaacson’s “iBio” Steve Jobs remains massively influential. Danyl Mclauchlan examines how the deeply flawed genius the book revealed continues to manifest. It’s the end of the decade, and my social media aggregators are filled with lists of the best, most influential books of the last 10 years. For most writers … Read more
In politics the worst ideas and most deceitful statements are often the most amplified, and therefore the most successful, writes Danyl Mclauchlan. Back in early 2016, as the UK hurtled towards the Brexit referendum, Dominic Cummings, the director of the Vote Leave campaign – now special adviser to Boris Johnson and one of the architects … Read more