Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Coronavirus fears loom over OCR announcement, Salvation Army release annual SOTN report, and the PM does actually trust her deputy PM. Will the coronavirus have an effect on the Reserve Bank’s interest rates announcement today? There’s been a fair bit of speculation in the past week … Read more
Let’s disentangle the prized day of casual clothing from its colonial connotations, writes historian Katie Pickles. As another school year starts up around the country, getting into uniforms is compulsory for most pupils. It’s only the occasional mufti day that brings the chance to ditch the conformity. But little do most mufti day organisers and … Read more
Every year the Salvation Army releases a report assessing areas like child poverty and housing. Here’s how we’re doing in 2020. When Jacinda Ardern announced Labour’s first Wellbeing Budget in 2019, she emphasised the importance of placing people at the heart of economic decisions. She acknowledged “New Zealand has had strong growth for a number … Read more
Accepting his Oscar, national treasure Taika Waititi gave a widely-praised acceptance speech that he nevertheless later described as ‘the worst’. Giving speeches that get everyone talking has become something of a habit for the actor/director/screenwriter – here are 10 other examples Taika Waititi is unique among public speakers in that he seems to actively reject … Read more
A highlight of this year’s New Zealand Festival of the Arts are the collaborations between some of the best artists and creators in the world. Sam Brooks talks to artists about the work they’re making and what collaboration means to them. Whether it’s the relationship between a writer and an editor, between a choreographer and … Read more
We know that coronavirus is dangerous, but what does it actually do to your body? Epidemiologist Allen Cheng explains. We usually think of viral respiratory infections, like the common cold, as mild nuisances that pass in a few days. But the Wuhan coronavirus has proven to be different. Of those infected, around 2% are reported … Read more
Real data shows SMEs are in good health, yet business confidence is down. Three issues need tackling, writes Xero’s David Bell, to reshape the way we view the small business economy. Business confidence survey questions have been the lifeblood of how many view the economy for too long. Significant national business decisions are being made … Read more
The minister of economic development is trumpeting news that gaming is on track to be a billion dollar industry in New Zealand. Meanwhile Dean Hall, CEO of Dunedin-based gaming developer Rocketwerkz, is waiting for the government to do more than issue glowing press releases. When the NZ Herald spoke to me about the lack of … Read more
After a bite of schnitzel sends her running to the toilet, Julie Hill dives into the murky world of Britain’s favourite meat substitute. It was late in the evening and my stomach was empty. I was on my way home after a slightly depressing trip to the hospital, hungry but too weary to cook from … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: NZ First Foundation referred to police, major campaign launched to close measles immunity gap, and emissions forecast rises again. The story around donations to the NZ First Foundation has become a lot more serious, and both the police and Serious Fraud Office will be involved. It … Read more
Increasingly large swathes of the country are getting bone dry, and it’s starting to cause serious problems. In today’s cheat sheet, Alex Braae looks into how bad the North Island drought is getting. What’s all this then? If you live in Auckland or further north, have you noticed how it hasn’t really rained all that … Read more
Alex Casey delivers her fifth power rankings for The Bachelorette NZ, where the lads hit Argentina and things gets smoking hot. Click here for previous instalments. You can’t spell Argentina without “gent” – and boy did our gents tie?one?on? this week. Ar-gen-tina! Ar-gen-tina! Ar-gen-tina! Did I mention that the lads have gone to Argentina this … Read more
The Serious Fraud Office will investigate donations relating to NZ First and the NZ First Foundation. It sets a tone for election year, and the spotlight on her deputy prime minister is the stuff of nightmares for Jacinda Ardern. The course of election year in Aotearoa never did run smooth. And so it is in … Read more
Otago University law professor Andrew Geddis explains why authorities are so interested in what the NZ First Party did with donations to the ‘NZ First Foundation’. Political donation scandals, it would seem, are like Wellington buses. You can spend years impatiently waiting on one, then along come a couple in quick succession. Because, hot on … Read more
New Zealanders insure their cars and contents at almost four times the rate that they insure the thing that pays for all of this – their income. Alice Webb-Liddall learns about insuring her most essential asset. Going about their daily lives, most people don’t think about all the different ways things could go wrong. It … Read more
For three nights, four guides and 41 trampers were stuck on the Milford Track as more than a metre of rain fell in 48 hours. Guide Oliver Missen was witness to the downpour. The trip started as usual. We met in Queenstown, looked through the weather update, then quickly repacked to make sure my rain … Read more
From video games to face masks to seafood, coronavirus is shaking up global supply chains in unpredictable ways, writes Michael Andrew. “When America sneezes, the world catches cold,” goes the old adage – a metaphor to explain the global consequences of any disturbance in the United States’ economy. Certainly the same can be said of … Read more
In 2018, Robert Jones wrote a piece he argued was ‘satire’, in which called for an annual ‘Māori Gratitude Day’. Filmmaker and activist Renae Maihi responded with a petition to have him stripped of his knighthood. Jones is suing her for defamation. You’d be forgiven for thinking it was Sir Bob Jones being sued for … Read more
Laurie Winkless on the campaign to place Angela Saini’s Inferior, a book that disproves many dangerous, incorrect, gender-based stereotypes, into New Zealand secondary schools. Last year, I was tagged in a Twitter post by Dr Jess Wade. She was celebrating the success of a fundraising campaign that had raised more than $46,000 to get a … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: New poll sets scene for election year, scale of public support for Weta Group revealed, and Phil Goff’s emails for sale. Each poll is just one snapshot, but this particular one is very interesting. The Newshub Reid Research poll has Labour and the Greens with a collective two-seat … Read more
Alex Casey goes on a hunt to find the rarest $10 note in the land. I’ve always been really good at finding money. Not in the useful, fiscal hole kind of a way, but in the literal, frequently picks up bottle caps thinking they are 50c coins kind of a way. Last year, a car … Read more
The controversy around the unexpected (but ‘pre-planned’) mid-season break for Black Caps coach Gary Stead left countless cricket fans feeling they were being taken for suckers. And no wonder: it’s only reasonable to be suspicious of what sports administrators tell us, writes Alex Braae. In the English Premier League, there’s a phrase that inevitably causes … Read more
Poet essa may ranapiri says this review is one of the hardest things they’ve written. I spend two months with this book, following Witi Ihimaera’s journey, I see car tyres in country roads I see tears on lover’s faces, I feel the beating of the heart, as it strains against the western paradigm of heteronormativity. … Read more
Labour’s rising star has decided that he won’t run again in his electorate, and will instead go list-only at the next election. So what will it mean for Kris Faafoi’s burgeoning role in government? And who might step up in the Mana electorate? Only a select few get the privilege of going list-only. When one … Read more
The film adaptation of the hit stage musical Cats has been described as a true work of depravity. But could it become an ironic cult favourite? José Barbosa investigates a screening in his ‘hood. When I first saw Cats I was, like a fair chunk of the audience, lured to the movie theatre with the promise … Read more
Sometimes death comes for the old, and sometimes for the young. And sadly, like life, it rarely makes much sense when it does come. It was 8.45 am and my phone was vibrating. Ella’s name flashed on the screen. The call was probably a mistake, an accidental pocket-dial, I thought. We usually text each other … Read more
Our health system is broken. It has betrayed its community rather than served it. And the solution lies with the voices of patients, writes Glenn Colquhoun, a New Zealand poet and doctor based on the Kāpiti coast. When Māui first hauled up the North Island of New Zealand it was smooth. His brothers sat beside … Read more
Last week Renee Liang, a paediatrician, poet and mother, wrote about a parenting expert’s ‘brexting’ remarks. Here Dr Natalie Flynn responds. I’m not surprised my comments about “brexting” elicited strong responses from mothers. Unfortunately, they were mischaracterised in an article on The Spinoff. Dr Renee Liang has written an entertaining and deeply heart-felt ode to … Read more
A recent suggestion that capitalism was the only system capable of fighting climate change and environmental degradation sparked a lot of controversy. Here, long-time activist Karen Davis offers a rebuttal. There’s a tendency among beneficiaries of free market capitalism to repeat the mantra of Margaret Thatcher: There Is No Alternative. That’s especially the case when … Read more