Toby Manhire 
Pollwatch: National open up lead of almost 10 points in a poll that lives up to the hype. And the Greens, on these numbers, are finished. Incredibly explosive, Volatile and telling, and now from the Patrick Gower poll hype machine we have Dramatic and devastating. Hard to argue he’s exaggerating, however, given the numbers from … Read more
Frustration within the Greens over perceived disregard for their Memorandum of Understanding partner is increasingly coming to the surface. Will it aid or enfeeble the smaller party, wonders Toby Manhire. At the Back Benches debate in Auckland last month, a Green Party supporter held aloft a sign that declared, on a green background “Campaigning against … Read more
Following a poll of readers, the tireless team behind the Spinoff Policy tool have added a bunch of extra categories. Close to 100,000 people have in the last few weeks visited our interactive tool Policy to compare key policies from all major political parties for election 2017. But are the team behind the thing, led by Asher … Read more
Pollwatch: National drops into the 30s as Labour charges on after Joyce attack on their numbers. It seems longer, but it was this time last week that Bill English and Jacinda Ardern were debating for the first time in the campaign, immediately following the release of the astonishing Colmar Brunton poll for 1News. Astonishing because … Read more
Almost a hundred thousand people have explored the main parties’ policy platforms on Policy since it launched three weeks on the Spinoff. And now it has an amazing new feature, blinkers, which challenges users to select the policies they prefer without a party logo beside them. The response to Policy has been overwhelming, both in … Read more
Pollwatch: An eagerly awaited Reid poll for Newshub gives National a slim lead, but the most fascinating numbers are NZ First’s. The Colmar Brunton / 1News poll on Thursday night that put Labour ahead of National for the first time in 12 years had heads spinning through the first leaders’ debate and deep into the night. But … Read more
Pollwatch: The new One News poll proves the Jacinda effect is no blip. And the game has changed dramatically ahead of the first debate. For anyone who has been paying attention to New Zealand politics over recent years, these latest numbers from One News and Colmar Brunton don’t so much speak for themselves as shout … Read more
The SpinoffLab™ puts the Labour Party’s ad starring Jacinda Ardern through its captioning machine. View the first National Party ad, explained, here; the National Party teal-runners ad, explained, here; the first Labour Party ad, explained, here; and the first Green Party ad, explained, here. The leadership switcheroo meant plenty of things for the Labour Party, and among them … Read more
In the latest of our series that uses science to caption the parties’ campaign commercials, we examine National’s jogging sensation. In 2014, the National Party metaphor division pitted the blue people boat against the motley people boat, all to the tune of a pretty legal Eminemesque soundtrack. After three years of deep thinking and fresh … Read more
The National Party’s response to the new Labour challenge was laid out at their big event yesterday. Toby Manhire joins the blue sea in Henderson It was a family affair at the National Party campaign launch in west Auckland yesterday. Dr Mary English was alongside her husband all afternoon, and esteemed at length in his … Read more
The latest party leader to be eaten by this election is Mr Ōhāriu. From the worm to the planking, thanks for the memories, writes Toby Manhire Three of the seven parties in the New Zealand parliament have seen a leader quit in the last three windswept weeks. Peter Dunne, leader of United Future and one … Read more
The Town Hall campaign launch underlined the startling turnaround for the party under Jacinda Ardern, and the palpable power of momentum, writes Toby Manhire. The understatement of the day came from Jacinda Ardern herself. “I can only say that when we booked the Town Hall for this event we did not expect this,” she said, … Read more
Pollwatch: 1 News’s Colmar Brunton survey puts the Greens out of parliament, in a nostalgic National vs Labour race. MMP was meant to make multi-party politics the norm, and so it has: we’ve never seen a majority one-party government. But the two big parties have resisted all obituaries, and the new Colmar Brunton poll for … Read more
Coverage of politics generally, and this election particularly, is assailed for focusing too much on personality, and not enough on policy. In an attempt to redress that, we’re excited to unveil a major new project to help you get to grips with the rival parties’ policies and so decide how to cast your vote. Here the Spinoff’s Toby Manhire introduces Policy. … Read more
The deputy PM is the latest Australian politician who could have to quit over dual citizenship rules. Fear not, top Ockers! The Spinoff’s legal dept has come up with a 100% foolproof solution to your pickle. To be fair it does seem a bit of an underarm delivery on the constitution’s part. The dreaded Section 44 rules that no … Read more
Pollwatch: Under Jacinda Ardern, Labour has powered back to the future in the new Newshub poll, as an embattled Green party slides. But are National impermeable? And should we be talking about a disaster for NZ First, too? Toby Manhire weighs it all up. There is something distasteful about fighting over a political corpse. “We … Read more
An attempted mutiny against Metiria Turei has ended with two MPs resigning and the Greens thrown into turmoil. The Ardern euphoria now faces a brutal hangover, writes Toby Manhire #IstandwithMetiria, went one of the rallying cries that echoed among Green supporters in response to the backlash against the co-leader’s revelations of historic law-breaking. This evening two … Read more
Labour has jettisoned its leader and overhauled its campaign – but National, too, is having to rethink its approach, writes Toby Manhire Look, it’s not as though it was Obama 2008. Labour’s new mantra, “Let’s do this”, sounded less stadium and more working bee. But there was no mistaking the buoyant mood at the launch … Read more
The Green co-leader’s confessions were snowballing, her position becoming untenable. But ultimately the decision seems to have come down to Jacinda Ardern. ’Tis the season for resigning, and there was plenty of speculation Metiria Turei was about to do that when she called a press conference for noon today. Her first words upon addressing the … Read more
Following Andrew Little’s resignation, Jacinda Ardern has been unanimously elected as Labour leader, with Kelvin Davis as her deputy. Here’s a quick survey of the pros and cons. At her first press conference as leader of the Labour Party, Jacinda Ardern has promised to run “the campaign of our lives”. She and new deputy Kelvin … Read more
After a tumultuous 36 hours of terrible polls and admissions from Andrew Little that he’s considered resigning as leader, the Labour caucus meets today. What to expect? This, definitely this … Let there be no doubt about it. Andrew Little is about to resign as leader (Mike Williams), and Andrew Little is safe in his … Read more
Pollwatch: the latest numbers, and Andrew Little’s response, have led to a welter of commentary on Labour’s predicament – including, on the Spinoff, here and here and here – but if only for a quick change of scenery, here are a few other observations worth noting. It is just possible you’ve noticed that the New Zealand Labour Party is not … Read more
The centre-left bloc just went up in the polls, but the conversation is all about the viability of Andrew Little as Labour leader – and it’s a conversation he started, writes Toby Manhire Andrew Little’s decision to tell New Zealand he has been contemplating resigning the Labour leadership has proved a success by one metric … Read more
Pollwatch: Andrew Little admits he’s thought about standing down, after the latest from One News and Colmar Brunton shows a leap in support for the Greens. And how about that undecided number … During the 2014 election campaign, the Green Party gained a piffling 1% of media coverage, the party’s co-leader James Shaw told the … Read more
Noelle McCarthy and John Daniell talk about the challenges – eg Winston Peters – they confronted in creating their new series for RNZ, Slice of Heaven. There are few more vexatious issues than immigration. Particularly in the wake of recent political ruptures around the world. Particularly in an election year. In a new podcast for … Read more
In the third of our series mining the truths from the political promos, Toby Manhire overthinks ‘Great Greens’. Already the Spinoff has turned its groundbreaking and vandalistic attention to the National Party’s “Let’s Get Together” and the Labour Party’s “Fresh Start”. Today it’s the turn of the Greens, whose first campaign ad was well ahead of … Read more
Andrew Little just talks naturally to New Zealand in the party’s first ad ahead of the election. Toby Manhire dives deep and scrawls captions on top of their captions. The National Party had its “Let’s Get Together” jingle, which we deconstructed using science yesterday. Today it’s Labour turn, with their “Fresh Approach” debut video ad. First, the video as … Read more
Already the internet is being bedazzled by political messages in the election leadup. Here Toby Manhire helpfully analyses National’s debut effort using the medium of captions. We’re still awaiting a ruling in the lawsuit against the National Party over their “Eminemesque” commercial – the one with the boats – from 2014, and already the first ad … Read more
Turns out you can randomly issue demands for payment, and we’re totally into it. Please pay promptly. New Zealand woke this July morning to news that the Taxpayers’ Union will be issuing Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei with a “very large invoice on behalf of all the taxpayers and beneficiaries who follow the law”, following … Read more