Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Politicians take limelight at Waitangi, Auckland Lantern Festival cancelled, and each end of the country facing contrasting extreme weather. Ceremonies at Waitangi started yesterday, ahead of the day itself tomorrow. So far, the coverage has been dominated by grandstanding. Stuff’s Thomas Coughlan was there, and has an account … Read more
In an MMP election that could come down to a few percentage points of wasted vote, two parties on National’s right flank are going toe to toe. Alex Braae reports. In throwing one right wing party a lifeline, National might have just sounded the death knell for another. When Simon Bridges announced that he would … Read more
On this day two years ago, Jacinda Ardern delivered a powerful, acclaimed speech at Waitangi. She implored her audience then, as she has again in recent days, to hold her to account on delivering for Te Ao Māori. We’ve taken that speech and held it up against the Labour-led government’s achievements to date. In February … Read more
The first phase of New Zealand’s ultrafast broadband rollout came to a close at the end of 2019. Alex Braae takes a look back at the decade-long project that was UFB1. The thing about having an extremely fast internet connection is that it doesn’t take long to completely take it for granted. A perfect example … Read more
In a classic case of better late than never, pioneering Māori tennis player Ruia Morrison was honoured at the 2020 ASB Classic in Auckland. She looked so small, standing on a tennis court with Kiingi Tūheitia on one side and Serena Williams on the other. In her slightly-too-large blazer she looked too small to have … Read more
Librarian Rebecca Hastie with a crash course on the fraught task of “weeding”, the systematic removal of resources from a library collection. Writer and reviewer David Larsen wrote an article the other week conveying his immense displeasure and concern that the National Library is removing 600,000 books from its collection. David’s piece, along with the … Read more
New developments have emerged this morning around donations to the New Zealand First Foundation. So, what do they show, and will it matter? What’s all this then? It was revealed by Radio NZ this morning that donations made to the NZ First Foundation came from some of New Zealand’s wealthiest and most powerful people. That … Read more
Findings of the Māori-led inquiry into Oranga Tamariki highlight the trauma and heavy-handed state approach behind New Zealand’s appalling child care and protection statistics. Teuila Fuatai looks at the key findings and reaction to it. Dame Naida Glavish: ‘The treatment of Māori women has been inhumane’ Dame Naida Glavish led the governance group which oversaw … Read more
A recent survey showed millennials are having less sex than older generations. AM Show host Mark Richardson claims it’s because millennials “take all these booty shots” and “photoshop themselves on Facebook”. I was going to write a thesis rebutting all of Richardson’s strangely aggressive and contradicting claims about millennials’ sex lives, but I’m busy doing other things.
As the mother of an immunocompromised child, Kiki Van Newton has more excuse than most to worry about the coronavirus outbreak. But racist reactions – and panicked border closures – aren’t the answer, she writes. When my baby was eight weeks old she was in hospital. Each day a physiotherapist would put on a mask … Read more
From foul combat snacks to forbidden cones and fruit-based sophistication, the most sought-after sugary snacks of his childhood still hold a special place in John Summers’ heart. Childhood is always summer in recollection, and so came with the hope of ice cream, of jandals slapping on dry pavement in the direction of the dairy. There … Read more
The decision to rule out working with NZ First was a demonstration of more than just cold hard electoral calculus from Simon Bridges, writes former National party activist and commentator Liam Hehir. As we all know, Simon Bridges has vowed not to work with Winston Peters after the 2020 election. This means that New Zealanders … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: First ever deployment of new Metservice warning, NZ First Foundation donor identities revealed, and economic fallout from virus spreads. Increasingly serious weather has been hammering the West Coast and Fiordland, causing major problems for several towns. A state of emergency has been declared in Fiordland, reports Stuff. Metservice … Read more
As the world’s second-largest economy rushes to contain the deadly coronavirus which has killed more than 360 people, what effects will it have on some of New Zealand’s key industries in the short term? Aviation From Monday, foreigners arriving from or transiting through China will be refused entry into New Zealand in an attempt to … Read more
Alex Casey delivers her third power rankings for The Bachelorette NZ, where it’s double trouble and Glenn turns to rubble. Click here for previous instalments. Even though I called it months ago, I still can’t breathe properly when I think about how good it is to have Lily McManus joining Doctor Lesina on this television … Read more
Sam Brooks watched today’s NFL Super Bowl and recaps the moments that mattered. 12:30 NZ Time: Demi Lovato sings ‘The Star Spangled Banner’, seemingly live! Did you know that a lot of people lip-sync this specific gig? Including Whitney Houston, singing objectively the most famous rendition of the ‘Star Spangled Banner’! Sorry to ruin your … Read more
Sam Brooks watches Netflix’s Miss Americana, the new Taylor Swift documentary – and finds it light on revelation, heavy on image rehabilitation. “My entire moral code, as a kid and now, is a need to be thought of as good. It I was all I wrote about, it was all I wanted. It was the … Read more
Why are we still looking to America first when it comes to our decisions on which countries to engage with, asks former MP Keith Locke. Britain’s decision to resist American pressure and let Huawei into its 5G network is embarrassing for New Zealand. Earlier our government had fallen into line with Washington and Canberra and … Read more
Finally, New Zealand is getting country-of-origin food labelling. But the recently released draft regulations are a missed opportunity to provide consumers with clarity around where their food comes from and how it’s produced, writes Hilary Pearson of Freedom Farms. It seems a bit laborious to rehash the already storied history of the Consumers’ Right to … Read more
With school swimming pools continuing to close across the country, it’s never been more difficult for a New Zealand child to learn to swim. Today many families will stand at the school gates and send their little ones off to school, some for the first time. That mixture of fear, pride, and excitement mixed with … Read more
From tennis champions to dance craze inventors, Scratched celebrates New Zealand sporting heroes who never got their due – but whose legacies deserve to be in lights. This month, Ruia Morrison meets Serena Williams. Watch the original Ruia Morrison episode of Scratched here. At the ASB Classic winner’s ceremony, Serena Williams, having just won her first title … Read more
Alex Braae heads to North Harbour Stadium to watch the Auckland baseball team play a crunch game before a wild, Baby Shark-chanting crowd. By rights, the Auckland Tuatara shouldn’t be a big deal. They’ve been around just two years, playing a sport that almost nobody in New Zealand bothers with, in a competition largely unheralded … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Former PM Mike Moore mourned, travel ban put in place in attempt to prevent Coronavirus, and Greens break government ranks over transport spending. Former PM Mike Moore has passed away at the age of 71, a few days after his birthday. A wide range of tributes … Read more
With reports that several people in New Zealand have been tested for suspected coronavirus – they were all negative – and the WHO declaring the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the New Zealand government yesterday announced entry restrictions for foreign nationals arriving from or transiting through mainland China. Siouxsie Wiles summarises the … Read more
With the impeachment process essentially shut down by the Senate, attention turns today to the state of Iowa, where it’s finally time for voting in the race to challenge Donald Trump for the presidency. So what are the Iowa Caucuses, why do they get such attention, and which Democrats are best placed to make it … Read more
In 1994, New Zealand sent a cross-party delegation of five MPs to Timor-Leste on a fact-finding mission. It made a real difference, and could do again for West Papuans, writes Cat McLennan. When France refused to halt nuclear testing in the South Pacific and continued to detonate bombs at Moruroa Atoll, New Zealand sent a … Read more
JP Pomare is a Kiwi living in Melbourne, and a stingingly great writer. His new thriller In the Clearing is set in the Australian bush, with fire forever licking the horizon. We asked him to tell us about the view from over there. 1 Notes on burning When my family read my new novel In The … Read more
The 33rd prime minister of New Zealand pays tribute to the 34th, Mike Moore, who passed today. Mike Moore was a force of nature in New Zealand politics for many years. He was first elected to parliament in 1972 at an extraordinarily young age and was a backbencher in the 3rd Labour government. Although defeated … Read more
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Mike Moore died this morning, a few days after his 71st birthday. Moore, New Zealand’s 34th prime minister, suffered a stroke in 2015 when he was New Zealand’s ambassador in Washington DC and had been in declining health in recent years. Jacinda Ardern paid tribute, saying, “The world lost a … Read more