Former prime minister Mike Moore died this morning, a few days after his 71st birthday. His widow, Yvonne, issued the following tribute. Mike was born in Whakatane but grew up in Kawakawa and Moerewa in the Far North and wanted to spend his final months in the place that gave him his drive, spirit and … Read more
Dietary Requirements is The Spinoff’s monthly podcast in which we eat, drink and talk about it too, with special thanks to Freedom Farms. This month, we’re joined by food writer Ginny Grant and a whole lot of babies for our first podcast of 2020. We’re back for 2020 and the Dietary Requirements whānau has magically expanded! … Read more
The political pilgrimage north is under way ahead of the commemoration of the signing of te tiriti. RNZ’s Jo Moir surveys the calm before the storm. Thousands of people from around the country will begin the annual pilgrimage to Waitangi on Sunday, and the sleepy snippet of the Bay of Islands will transform once again. … Read more
In a pointed op-ed for The Spinoff this morning, the Green Party’s transport spokesperson, Julie Anne Genter, voices dissatisfaction with the ‘NZ Upgrade’, calling the motorway focus ‘nowhere near what we need’. The first details of the huge $12 billion infrastructure spend-up came on Wednesday morning, ahead of the all-star announcement in Auckland. Some $200 … Read more
The Green Party transport spokesperson writes on the good, the bad and the ugly of the big infrastructure announcement. It is election year and it is time to decide where we are heading. The Green Party will be laying out bold plans this year for reducing our climate pollution, ensuring people have enough to thrive, … Read more
What’s the best way to get adults reading? Get them reading when they’re children – and there’s no better place to start than the Unity Children’s Bestseller Chart. AUCKLAND 1 Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (Amulet Books, $30, 8+) Briar at Little Unity writes: so this is the movie tie-in hardback edition, but it’s … Read more
Brannavan Gnanalingam reads Rose Lu’s groundbreaking essay collection – overlooked by the Ockhams judges – and finds it full of elevating yarns that make him feel seen. The question many non-white people dread is, “where are you from?” The question is loaded – obviously, people have noticed your skin colour as different from the outset. … Read more
Sam Brooks makes the case for raising your kids on the exquisite Japanese anime films, which have just landed on Netflix. A girl waits at a bus stop in the rain, barely fitting herself and her little sister under an umbrella. Next to her sits a large creature halfway between a bear and beachball. He … Read more
In the near decade since Sawmill Brewery’s new owners came on board, they’ve made some of the best beers in the country, won awards and watched their brewery burn down. And their former landlords at the Leigh Sawmill Cafe accuse them of acting unethically. Alice Neville reports from Matakana. Every Monday, when the Sawmill Brewery’s … Read more
The controversial mission, ‘Birds of a Feather’, is the first launch for a US spy agency from NZ. Ollie Neas explains what we know – and even more importantly, what we don’t. Last May, The Spinoff reported that New Zealand Space Agency staff had met with officials from a major US intelligence agency, the National … Read more
The blue moki are running and the tuna are returning to the sea. We’re entering the fifth phase of summer. Ngā mihi o te wā e te whānau! We are in the ninth lunar month of Pēpuere and at the end of the summer phase Matiti Kaiwai, moving to Matiti Raurehu. Kaiwai, the fourth phase, … Read more
Can the Spinoff politics podcast’s tense coalition of Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas survive an election year in which each will be striving to carve out their own identity? And can Madeleine Chapman stay awake while they’re doing it? The political year has got off to a hiss and a roar and the … Read more
The On the Rag team assemble to dissect what feels like the longest month in human history. We’re back for another year to yarn about all things to do with women in the news and media, along with some other things that have nothing to do with anything. The first month of 2020 has come … Read more
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Picador, $20) Time travel done incredibly badly, by some accounts, and impeccably … Read more
What are you going to be watching in February? The Spinoff rounds up everything that’s coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix, Lightbox, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Neon and TVNZ OnDemand. Click here to read our listings from January. The Biggies Outlander (Season 5 on Lightbox weekly from February 17) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t745AinnAno Outlander is back … Read more
Experts believe that New Zealand workers need more technology, not less, if we’re going to become a more productive country. It’s official: the robots are not coming for our jobs. Conventional wisdom has it that the unprecedented technological change the world has seen in the last few decades is resulting in wholesale replacement of people … Read more
On its 20th anniversary, Sam Brooks looks back on The Sims, the safest space for an entire generation of gamers. Over the past two decades, The Sims has turned from a quirky life simulation experiment into one of those games that even non-gamers know about, and might even play from time to time. It’s a … Read more
This week’s big infrastructure announcement included a grand total of zero dollars for rail for New Zealand’s second largest city, writes James Dann. The government opened the campaign season in earnest this week when they opened up a big sack of money and threw it at a series of infrastructure projects around the country. While … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Concerns grow in the public media merger information void, costs of school return being counted, and a charter flight arranged for Wuhan evacuations. A plan is in the works to transform state broadcasting in New Zealand, with some form of merger between TVNZ and Radio … Read more
The man who led the All Blacks to victory in the first World Cup went on to become a Rhodes scholar, political operator and business leader. Today he’s worried about tribalism and the Trumpian tendency to vilification. He sits down with Spinoff business editor Maria Slade in Sydney. Rugby legend, Rhodes scholar, business leader and … Read more
Independent experts will soon arrive in New Zealand to assess our human rights record. We should embrace these visits as a chance to do better, writes chief human rights commissioner Paul Hunt. A strong democracy, at ease with itself, welcomes constructive scrutiny. That’s why as a country we should be able to welcome the arrival of … Read more
House on Hood, which was criticised for promoting a deal on Corona beer with reference to the coronavirus, has discontinued the promotion after being contacted by Lion, which distributes Corona in New Zealand. A Hamilton bar’s social media promotion offering a deal on Corona beers as long as the deadly coronavirus continued to spread has … Read more
As both negotiate the complexities of being part memorial, part protest and part celebration, an empathetic allegiance between Waitangi Day and the Auckland Pride Festival has the potential of collective empowerment, writes Richard Orjis. Waitangi Day falls in the middle of this year’s Auckland Pride Festival. Rather than being strange bedfellows in the summer cultural … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Morris Pita from EmergencyQ. You might be unlucky enough to have experienced sitting with a kid at an … Read more
Emily Writes visits Flick Electric Co’s HQ to learn why they think having dogs in the office hasn’t just made their workplace happier, it’s made them more productive too. Nobody is quite sure how Flick HQ in Wellington became a dog office. Apparently, someone brought their pup in. Then another person did. Then another. Georgina … Read more
Managing your money isn’t all about Excel sheets and financial diaries. Here are just a few apps we recommend to help you on your way. Money Lover This probably sounds bizarre, but there’s something oddly therapeutic about monitoring your money with an expense tracking app. Not only does it help keep how much you’re spending … Read more
The Real Pod reassembles to dissect the first week of The Bachelorette NZ with special thanks to Nando’s. Blow your air horns and distress your jeans, the very first week of The Bachelorette NZ is over and we are absolutely amping. Join us as we recap the Tough Mudder group date, the romantic single dates … Read more
Now that the new year is well and truly underway, how can you make the most of your time and feel good about it? Sam Brooks has you covered. Write a to-do list with at least one easy thing on it Nothing feels better than ticking off a list, and nothing motivates you to … Read more
This content was created in paid partnership with the Child Poverty Action Group. Learn more about our partnerships here.