Your Northern hemisphere favourites are back this month (Outlander and Vikings) but there be gold on these here Lightbox shores too, yarr. The Spinoff staff run through what’s new to Lightbox in the month of November. Outlander (Season 4, weekly every Monday from November 5) Guy Fawkes Night will go off with a bang when the much-loved … Read more
Today’s 6.2 earthquake was centred near Taumarunui and transmitted via a rigid subducting slab on the east of the North Island A magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck at 3.13pm today, centred 25 kilometres south-west of Taumarunui. Fire and Emergency said there were no immediate reports of damage. Classified as large and deep by GNS, it led … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Nicky Hager: Dirty Politics, 2018: Nicky Hager assesses the Jami-Lee Ross saga “The book Dirty Politics is not about awful people; it is about a negative and destructive style of attack politics that has infected New Zealand from US politics. This is the idea that success in … Read more
According to reports over the weekend the MP Jami-Lee Ross has been admitted to mental health care after being ‘sectioned’. But what does that mean? What is sectioning? In New Zealand, when you have a mental illness, you can generally decide your treatment options. Sectioning is a term that covers situations where someone needs mental … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Don Rowe: Tasman deathtrap: the brutal toll of Australia’s deportation policy “Shortly after 9pm on September 11, Togatuki sent two calls for help over the prison intercom, telling guards he had harmed himself. No one responded. There was a big NRL game that evening. Sydney … Read more
Communication broke down in Britain’s parliament this week as a New Zealand-born MP struggled with another member’s Glaswegian accent. Sir Paul Beresford, MP for the Mole Valley in the British parliament, grew up in Levin and studied dentistry at Otago University before moving to the UK in the 70s to work in the NHS. “I’ve … Read more
In a post on Facebook Jami-Lee Ross has published audio which he says “confirms Simon Bridges and I discussing a $100k donation on 25 June. Simon Bridges says I’m lying – this is part of the evidence I gave to police today.” Jami-Lee Ross: Good thanks, buddy, how are you? Simon Bridges: Good, buddy, good. What’ve … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Dylan Reeve: A night aboard the most loathed aircraft in New Zealand “The sharp sound of the blades cutting into the air as it circles is familiar to many Aucklanders, including Orakei Local Board member Troy Churton, who attracted attention when he complained publicly about the helicopter … Read more
Our two favourite frenemies still have a lot of shit to work through. Watch round 1 here.
Preliminary calculations based on the tally conducted last month point to about 800 people living without shelter in NZ’s biggest city. Initial results from Ira Mata, Ira Tangata: Auckland’s Homeless Count have this afternoon been published. The first region-wide “point in time” survey estimated that 800 people are living without shelter – a figure extrapolated … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Don Rowe: How Ngāi Tahu turned a landmark settlement into a billion dollar iwi empire “At the time of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, almost half the landmass of New Zealand was considered the rohe of the South Island’s Ngāi Tahu. Within 20 … Read more
Editor Toby Manhire returns for his regular round-up of the week in New Zealand news. This week: embarrassing NZ values, underwhelming #sponcon, Judith Collins on ‘going lez’, Hosko and Leighton salute The Spinoff, and more.
It’s our hour-long finale with live music, numerous guests and hot, hot curry. What could possibly go wrong? We’ve arrived at the grand finale of The Spinoff TV! If the last 15 weeks have been a roller coaster, tonight’s episode is the big twisty corkscrew part where all the money falls out of your pocket … Read more
In the latest episode of their Spinoff TV segment looking at stuff white people inexplicably like, comedy group Frickin Dangerous Bro – Jame Roque, Pax Assadi and Jamaine Ross– overcome one of their strongest fears.
Get It to Te Papa follows journalist Hayden Donnell on an ambitious quest to collect underappreciated Kiwi cultural artefacts and get them into New Zealand’s national museum, Te Papa. Together with his director José Barbosa, Hayden scours the country for artefacts including the Waitangi Dildo, the animatronic fruit and vegetables from defunct supermarket chain Big … Read more
Hamish Parkinson investigates one of our great nation’s least-known foundational moments: Sir Edmund Hillary’s ultimately fruitless 1960 expedition to Nepal to look for the yeti.
A bee-based riff on The Hunger Games, a remake of your favourite problematic 80s film, and The Spinoff’s very own new doco-series. This is what’s new to Lightbox in October! Get It to Te Papa (weekly from October 16) “Get It to Te Papa began in great and abiding failure,” says Hayden Donnell, host of The Spinoff’s … Read more
The annual free concert featuring the top local pop stars of the day is one of New Zealand’s most enduring Christmas traditions. James Mustapic looks back at its most memorable moments. Watch all of James Mustapic’s Repressed Memories here.
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Danyl Mclauchlan: The dumbfounding nastiness of Simon Bridges’ ‘meth crooks’ remarks “Bridges is competing for media-space with Judith Collins, who was first out of the gate attacking the meth compensation announcement, declaring that the tenants were all evicted because of their ‘criminal activity’. Bridges … Read more
Because Jacinda-mania has gone global and we are going rogue. Look, it’s been a mad week. There are needles in the strawberries, ball bearings in the ice cream, and it seems like our prime minister is never coming home. Why not unwind by watching Mike Hosking’s favourite TV show on a Friday night?! Here are … Read more
For the time poor but geopolitical address hungry, we have mercilessly crunched down the NZ prime minister’s speech I’m struck as a leader attending my first United Nations General Assembly by the power and potential that resides here, or did until everyone scarpered to watch Brett Kavanaugh lost his shit on C-Span. Anyway, let’s do … Read more
The Spinoff’s editor Toby Manhire is back with our regular round up of the week’s winners and losers in New Zealand news. This episode: it was a very bad week for people trying to pronounce our prime minister’s name.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s been in the US this week and her arrival with baby Neve has caused quite the stir. If only they could get her name right…
Stay tuned for updates as top Kiwi broadcaster lashes back at Donald Trump with word play after being victimised by brutal new rules and/or not filling out a form he needed to fill out. Sunday April 15, 6am It’s there above the masthead of this morning’s Herald on Sunday. Top Kiwi broadcaster Barry Soper has … Read more
Chris Warner, House, Shaun Murphy, Meredith Grey, Mindy Lahiri – there are a lot of doctors on our television, but who is the goodest? Madeleine Chapman investigates, and the results may surprise you. The Good Doctor season two drops on Lightbox weekly, starting from today. You can watch the entire first season on Lightbox right … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Angela Cuming: Who the fluff is Blippi?? “If you don’t have young children there’s every chance you have never heard of Blippi, but the video superstar is a hero to millions of children the world over with his fun videos and catchy songs racking up more than … Read more
Because it’s suffrage week, we’ve got ourselves a right lady-fest on The Spinoff TV tonight. Tonight on The Spinoff TV, we celebrate suffrage week with an all-women episode featuring Anika Moa: queen of television, burps and oversharing. We talk about her new album, revisit the paranoia of Y2K and get stuck into what ads really … Read more
It’s been 125 years since women got the vote, but did you know men had it really bad too? Madeleine Chapman is here with all the news you need to know in this very special segment.
What do you get when you mix a bizarre selection of celebrities who have nothing in common with each other and a Gin Wigmore track? It’s an Air New Zealand safety video! And James Mustapic is here to rank them from worst to best. Watch Friday’s episode of The Spinoff TV in full here. Thanks … Read more