As thousands of spectators arrive in Wellington for Te Matatini this week, many may be wondering how to prepare for the country’s biggest kapa haka festival. Te Manu Korihi reporter Te Aniwa Hurihanganui talked to some of Te Matatini’s biggest fans to find out. Get there early Most die-hard Te Matatini fans will tell you … Read more
In the fifth instalment of our Money Talks series, freelancers Tess Nichol and Alice Webb-Liddall talk about retirement, and having enough money squirrelled away to enjoy it comfortably. For two young writers only a few years into their careers, the thought of being on the other end of their working life seems almost unimaginably far … Read more
As commentary and speculation swirls around the state of NZ relations with China, it’s a good time to take a breath and focus instead on the way forward, writes Bethan Greener. Commentary is swirling over Sino-Kiwi relations. Warnings to tourists, the turning back of an Air New Zealand plane from Shanghai, and New Zealand’s refusal … Read more
It’s supposed to be a shared path, but Auckland’s Northwestern Cycleway has been deemed too dangerous for a local school’s walking bus, reports Rowan Quinn for Radio NZ. Auckland primary school children have been verbally abused and almost hit by high speed cyclists on one of the city’s most popular cycleways. A primary school in … Read more
Last week, the Tetris battle royale game Tetris 99 dropped with no announcement. Adam Goodall spent three days with the game. This is his diary. FRIDAY 15 FEBRUARY About an hour after Tetris 99’s release and I know this much: I suck at the game, so much. Tetris 99 was surprise-announced this morning, like Lemonade but for … Read more
Everything from competition around supplying materials to how many lights you have in a room can determine the cost of building a house, says Box co-founder Dan Heyworth. You’re not imagining things – the cost of designing and building really is going crazy. In February 2017, the McKinsey Global Institute studied the effect of implementing construction … Read more
Two years after David Farrier helped to unearth the exploitation of children on YouTube, the sexualisation of children on the platform continues – and NZ companies are inadvertently appearing alongside it. Oskar Howell reports. New Zealand businesses are advertising their goods and services alongside softcore pornographic videos on YouTube; they just don’t know they’re doing … Read more
The Sallies are so fed up with mobile traders preying on poor areas and trapping people into crushing debt that they’re firing back with a rival service. When the Salvation Army first started in New Zealand in the 1800s it noticed the bakers of the day were exploiting people with extremely high bread prices. So, … 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. Back in January, we had Al Brown round for a barbecue and recorded a podcast while we were at it. A grand time was had by all, but as Simon Day poignantly relayed … Read more
Students at the University of Otago will be able to separate the tinnys from the sinnyz this Orientation Week in a first-ever trial between OUSA and KnowYourStuff NZ. This article first appeared in Critic Te Arohi, the University of Otago student magazine. The Otago University Students’ Association (OUSA) will introduce drug testing for O-Week, the … Read more
Joining dancing dildos, flags, Eminem and ponytails, getting-left-off-maps can now be added to our rolling collection of the Last Week Tonight show’s coverage of its most favoured/lampooned nation. Update, February 19, 2019: Topical comedy programme Last Week Tonight has returned to HBO for 2019, and its dedicated New Zealand Monitoring Unit has delivered already. It may have been … Read more
When reality show mutant Heartbreak Island launched last year, people lost their collective minds. But why? I’m basically a reality-TV virgin, but when Heartbreak Island aired last year, I was obliged to watch at least one episode because my brother was involved. There was no other reason I would, at that point, have cast my eyes upon … Read more
Sam Brooks talks to ASHY about her brilliant new single ‘Temporary Crush’, the hustle of being self-managed, and her hopes for 2019. I ran into ASHY’s music completely by accident. Every week I do a trawl through a few new music playlists to make sure that I, as someone who writes opinions about music far … Read more
The new local black comedy Fresh Eggs premieres on TVNZ2 tonight. Sam Brooks talks to the creators about what makes it so different. Fresh Eggs doesn’t look or feel like anything else on New Zealand televsion right now – or ever. The show, about two city-dwellers who move to the countryside after some life upheavals, has a … Read more
Emily Writes is hungry so she wrote about sandwiches, the most perfect food in the universe. My husband is a healthy-eating type of person which is quite grating, since I’m not. About a year ago he decided bread was bad and my life has been challenging ever since. I decided after a short January break … Read more
Does yesterday’s surprise announcement around the tax status of digital giants indicate a willingness to tackle the vast problems they create? Yesterday was just another Monday for the global tech giants: a select committee in the UK referred to Facebook as “digital gangsters” (not in an admiring way) for their response to privacy concerns, speculation … Read more
Jeremy Hansen pays tribute to author Peter Wells, who died yesterday – exactly a week after the launch of his final book, Hello Darkness, a memoir of living with his fatal illness. The past is a foreign country, especially if you were gay before the internet existed. In 1993 I was 23 years old and … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Tax on tech giants proposed but doesn’t go far, peace may be breaking out in China stoush, and the incredible story of two brothers vs the Avondale Business Association. The government has made a big announcement on taxing internet giants, but there are a lot of … Read more
With global angst mounting about the buildup of plastic ending up in landfills and the environment, chemists and materials scientists are considering pyrolysis as an option. But how does it work? And is it really a solution? For decades, putting used plastic into recycling bins was considered a convenient way to get rid of rubbish, … Read more
For 18 years a small group of local business owners ran the Avondale Business Association as they pleased. It took 18 months for two brothers to spark a revolution. Marcus Amosa loves Avondale. And not in the reluctant way that most people love a place they’ve been forced to spend years of their lives in. … Read more
As long as New Zealand is a member of the US-dominated Five Eyes spying network we will keep getting into trouble with China, argues former Green Party defence spokesperson Keith Locke Last November my heart sank when I heard our government had blocked Huawei from helping Spark set up a 5G network. Didn’t our prime … Read more
With screeds of media coverage of self-help strange tie fan Jordan Peterson, Emily Writes ponders if there possibly might be anyone more interesting to get on your podcast. Noted beef eater Jonathan Peitersen is almost literally covered in the excited juices of male journalists everywhere right now. You can’t avoid it even if you wanted … Read more
Property owners learn their fate on Thursday with the Tax Working Group‘s big reveal on capital capital gains tax. But whatever happens, it won’t be the housing panacea Generation Rent is hoping for, warns TOP’s Geoff Simmons. Here’s a message for young people who don’t yet own a home. In the coming months you will … Read more
Waveney Russ is impressed by an outstanding performance from Marlon Williams and the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra at Villa Maria in Auckland. This review was first published on RNZ Music. I’ve always wanted to have the patience, depth of character and intellect to enjoy a night out at the orchestra, but before tonight I had yet … Read more
The revelation that our national museum is on the brink of turfing out two world-class scientists casts grave doubt over its commitment to being a natural history museum, writes evolutionary biologist David Winter What is going on at Te Papa? As part of its latest round of restructuring, the museum’s directors asked an international panel … Read more
Danyl Mclauchlan on the ‘ersatz enlightenment’ of Jordan Peterson, who opens his New Zealand speaking tour with tonight’s sold-out event in Auckland. “Oh people still buy his book,” a Wellington bookseller told me when I asked her if Jordan Peterson was still even a thing. “And they’re also buying his recommended books. He’s published a … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: No good solutions for financial crisis at Eden Park, sharp response to NZ-China tourism stories, and Devonport fruit store owner faces heavy fruit fly costs. The biggest stadium in New Zealand is under severe, ruinous financial pressure. The full extent of Eden Park’s strife has been revealed, … Read more
Last year it was reported that deaths caused by drugged driving had overtaken the drink driving toll for the first time. As Roger Brooking writes, that was fake news. In 2017, 378 people died on New Zealand roads. In June last year, the Automobile Association followed up with a media release claiming “we now have more crash … Read more
The NZ government must take a much bolder stance on the tech giants who dominate our lives online, writes Leroy Beckett from Action Station, who today release The People’s Report on Online Hate, Harassment and Abuse. I spend most of the time I am awake online, in some form or another. It’s how I keep up with … Read more