Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Options for getting agriculture into ETS unveiled, leading academic savages billion trees programme, and OIO approves Westland Milk sale. A historic day for climate change policy in New Zealand, with agriculture set to become part of the emissions trading scheme. However, the mechanism by which that … Read more
Dreamed of traveling long term, but at a loss about how to afford it? Here’s how Kristin Hall and her partner managed it (spoiler: involves a lot of brown rice and cabbage). *Scroll to the end for an important note about privilege I’m not good with money, never have been, probably never will be. I … Read more
Daniel Ziffer’s rollicking account of Australia’s Royal Commission into banking is a jaw-dropping laundry list of scandals, heartbreaking stories, and ‘gotcha’ moments. The Hayne Commission was set up in 2017 to inquire into and report on misconduct in the Australian banking and financial services industry. The result was a litany of shocking revelations including charging … Read more
A local photographer has posted emails from Warner Brothers NZ requesting they work “unpaid” on Married At First Sight NZ. Update 17 July: Warner Brothers have responded with a comment attached to the bottom of this story. A wedding photographer has posted emails from Warner Brothers NZ on Reddit after the production company requested that … Read more
Sam Brooks reviews Mean Mums, the new sitcom from Three that manages to make putting a great show together look easy. When it premiered as part of Three’s Pilot Week last year, I called Mean Mums the winner of the bunch. Nearly a year later, my enthusiasm for that initial pilot hasn’t dimmed. It was the … Read more
Imagine if we treated our native birds with as little care as we do our precious fish stocks, writes ecologist Stella McQueen. Earlier this year, 900 at-risk native mudfish were relocated to make way for a wastewater development. But despite a huge amount of planning, volunteer hours, and a $160,000 bill, only a handful survived. … Read more
For when toast or cereal just doesn’t cut it, but you don’t have the time or inclination to do any actual cooking, try this. If I ever cook rice (or grains of any kind) for dinner, I often make extra to turn into breakfast the following morning. The recipe that follows is a riff on … Read more
For their latest ageing episode, Hilary Barry joins the On the Rag team to talk wrinkle creams, menopause and why people still think she is Jeremy Wells’ mum. This month’s episode of On the Rag is all about ageing. Time ravages us all, of course, but there’s no denying that women bear the bigger burden … Read more
Its rolling slate of cringey jokes and meaningless trivia is a familiar sight wherever there’s a captive audience – but what the hell is Giggle TV? Johnny Crawford looks into the tweet-stealing, wife joke-telling phenomenon. If you’ve spent any time in middle New Zealand in the past half-decade, you’re probably familiar with Giggle TV. Fish … Read more
It’s landlords who are finding themselves out in the cold as property managers begin to walk away from clients who haven’t insulated their rentals, reports Don Rowe. Two weeks after the first of New Zealand’s healthy homes deadlines, property managers are dropping landlords who refuse to insulate. David Faulkner, director of property management consulting firm … Read more
Grant Robertson, a cricket fanatic whose day jobs include being minister for finance and minister for sport, raced from Wellington to northwest London on the weekend to watch the Black Caps in what turned into the greatest one-day international ever played. I don’t remember the exact moment I fell in love with cricket. That’s a … Read more
Practical steps to take right now if you’re appalled at the news coming out of the United States. This article was originally published in June 2018 and has been updated with current information. From the far side of an ocean, we in Aotearoa are still watching, horrified, as human rights abuses unfold in real time … Read more
Ātea editor Leonie Hayden headed out to the hui for a Māori-led inquiry into Oranga Tamariki, the Ministry for Children, and found a unified Māori force that has decided enough is enough. When first announced, Saturday’s Oranga Tamariki hui was to be hosted at Ngā Whare Waatea marae in Māngere. When four times the projected … Read more
A vulnerability has hit users everywhere, New Zealand included, and it reveals something very troubling about the way the tech world works New Zealand Schools, district health boards and even perhaps the halls of power have found themselves compromised by a vulnerability in a video conference app called Zoom. The exploit allows any user to … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Both PM and deputy PM in action on foreign relationships, major climate report being released today, and DOC staff facing escalating threats. Both the PM and deputy PM are in action on foreign relationships this week, with plenty of challenges to navigate. Later this week, PM … Read more
California five-piece Local Natives are halfway through a world tour. Guitarist and songwriter Ryan Hahn took time out to talk to The Spinoff about their experimental new album. Local Natives’ latest album, Violet Street, is both a tribute to personal growth and a harkening back to the band’s roots. The southern Californian group released their … Read more
We keep hearing that Kids These Days are mollycoddled and risk-averse, but is that really true? And guess who gets blamed when kids do take risks and things go wrong? This generation aye? They don’t let their kids climb trees and they can’t play bullrush. No lolly scrambles either! In my day I used to … Read more
The Black Caps’ World Cup loss at Lord’s this morning has much of the country feeling pretty shit. From massage to mindfulness, here are five ways to feel just a tiny bit better. There’s a lot of weepy people out there today folks, a lot of real sad individuals. When you draw twice and still … Read more
With everything in politics moving so fast these days, it can be hard to remember characters from earlier seasons who get brought back for yet another run. So with John Banks considering another Auckland mayoralty run, what are some things you might have forgotten? Once upon a time, he was utterly ubiquitous. John Banks was … Read more
Māori culture shouldn’t be something that’s half-heartedly appropriated for some cool video game visuals. So why do developers keep doing it? This year’s Xbox E3 Briefing kicked off with a new game reveal, Bleeding Edge – a multiplayer action game in which players fight in 4v4 battles – and some exciting news for New Zealand players: … Read more
Fifty years ago today the anti-apartheid group Hart – Halt All Racist Tours – was formed. Founding chairperson Trevor Richards looks back to the 1960s New Zealand into which Hart was born, and how it launched a battle for the country’s soul. It has been said that if you can remember the 1960s, you weren’t … Read more
Eileen Merriman has whipped out three fine novels for young adults since debuting in 2017. Moonlight Sonata is her first crack at writing for adults. In this first chapter Merriman sets up a beatific family holiday – New Year’s, the beach, deckchairs and drinks – and injects a dose of abject wrongness. They see the … Read more
It comes thrice a year to pummel your aura into cosmic shards. Horoscope lovers are fiends for it, knowing that soon they’ll have a whole month of stellar excuses for their abominable behaviour. Oh yeah, Mercury’s in retrograde, baby! But what does that mean? I almost had a breakdown writing this article. I want to … Read more
The Offspin podcast tries to make sense of the greatest cricket game of all time, at the same time as not seeing the Black Caps win it. Perhaps our guest Sam Flynn Scott has the right approach to this one – immediately upon arrival at the studio he decided to focus on how the Black … Read more
A team of Kiwi scientists is using pictures taken by satellites in orbit to enable farmers to spot pollution on their land. New Zealand scientists are looking to put satellite imagery to good use by identifying pollution on Kiwi farms, helping make tomorrow a tiny bit greener. University of Auckland’s Intelligent Vision System lab (IVS) … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: John Banks looking at another mayoral run, warnings from economists of the housing bubble bursting, and Indonesia responds to West Papua protests. Could John Banks be about to get back in the ring and race for the Auckland mayoralty? This report from Stuff’s Bevan Hurley certainly indicates he’s weighing … Read more
The Black Caps were a critical part of what is probably the greatest game of cricket ever played, writes Duncan Greive. Is that enough to get over having lost it? It’s hard to imagine a more hollow consolation than having played the crucial supporting role in the greatest game of cricket any of us will … Read more
Eating vegan, buying less plastic and cycling are all useful things you can do for the environment, but not everyone can manage that. Generation Zero’s Alexandra McNeill has something that everyone can do, right now. Biking to work makes me angry. I’m constantly aware of car drivers, especially when they’re in my lane, or cutting … Read more
The blessed ScarJo has kept very quiet some of her most impressive performances. Movie star Scarlett Johansson has faced criticisms around taking the part (she ended up standing down) of a trans person in Rub and Tug and the lead in Ghost in the Shell, which was a Japanese character in its original manga form. She’s … Read more