Art Green’s company Riot Foods (parent company of CleanPaleo and Poppy & Olive) hit headlines this week for all the wrong reasons when it was revealed it needed $1 million in the next two weeks or risk being sold. Green and co-founder Ryan Kamins sat down exclusively with The Spinoff to reveal exactly what went … Read more
Henry Oliver talks to Anika Moa about humour, vulnerability, family and her new self-titled album. Anika Moa is fucking funny. She’s fucking funny on her newest show Anika Moa Unleashed. She’s fucking funny on Seven Sharp. She was fucking funny on Maori TV and The Herald before that. She’s fucking funny performing for kids. And … Read more
Get It to Te Papa follows journalist Hayden Donnell on an ambitious quest to collect underappreciated Kiwi cultural artefacts and get them into New Zealand’s national museum, Te Papa. Together with his director José Barbosa, Hayden scours the country for artefacts including the Waitangi Dildo, the animatronic fruit and vegetables from defunct supermarket chain Big … Read more
Self-confessed fan Morgan Godfery talks Māori politics with Green Party co-leader, Marama Davidson. Marama Davidson is your best friend. If she’s isn’t, you just haven’t met her yet. The Green Party co-leader, an ex-theatre girl – the daughter of Whale Rider koro Rawiri Paratene – former human rights advocate, and multitasking mother of six, wants … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: River quality report paints complex picture, Greens hit out at synthetics plan, while National come to the table on child poverty. A major annual water report has come out, showing a complex picture of the state of our rivers. If you’re looking for a quick, one line … Read more
The embattled social network now offers tools that let you see all the ads being served up by any given user of the platform, writes Leroy Beckett Facebook has had a hell of a year. After facing scandal after scandal and the United Nations’ exposure of dangerous issues with the platform, they have rolled out … Read more
Tonight, Marlon Williams won the 2018 APRA Silver Scroll for his song ‘Nobody Gets What They Want Anymore’. He talked to Henry Oliver about why it’s the best song he’s ever written. The Spinoff: I assume you’re the one who entered ‘Nobody Gets What They Want Anymore’ for a Silver Scroll. Why this song? Marlon … Read more
Two years ago, The Spinoff founder Duncan Greive commanded Hayden Donnell to stop pitching things that should be in Te Papa. Today we announce our new show, Get It to Te Papa, starring Hayden Donnell. Here he tells the story of its genesis. GET A FREE LIGHTBOX TRIAL AND WATCH GET IT TO TE PAPA HERE … Read more
Lifestyle blogger Hana Tapiata says no matter how much it hurts, if you want to bring your vision to life, you’re going have to let go of something. Ranginui was forced to let go, and by ‘forced’ I mean he and his wife Papatūānuku were severed from each other. They were pulled apart from each … Read more
The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in New Zealand pop culture and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s. This week on The Real Pod, Jane remains in the city of angels so Alex and Duncan are joined by honorary corndog and Survivor NZ superstar JT. Together, they mow through a huge week in … 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, with the interview available as both audio and a transcribed excerpt. This week he talks to Steven Renata, CEO of Kiwa Digital. If … Read more
Hamish Parkinson investigates one of our great nation’s least-known foundational moments: Sir Edmund Hillary’s ultimately fruitless 1960 expedition to Nepal to look for the yeti.
Controversial American academic and writer Christina Hoff Sommers is coming to New Zealand in 2019 for #FEMINIST, a talk with Roxane Gay about 21st century feminism. Alice Webb-Liddall spoke to her about what it means to be a self-styled ‘equity feminist’. With the self designed nickname “factual feminist”, Christina Hoff Sommers has defined her brand by … Read more
The show Renters is a morality play about the sufferings inflicted on landlords by their terrible tenants. Hayden Donnell talks to one of the show’s stars ahead of its seventh season, and tries to convince her to support pro-tenant rental reform. It’s impossible to dislike Pru Morrell. The star of TVNZ’s reality series Renters is … Read more
Philip Matthews reviews a new memoir of genius director David Lynch, who emerges from the book as a “happy neurotic”. Dougie heard the name and everything changed. If you watched last year’s mesmerising Twin Peaks reboot, Twin Peaks: The Return, you will know what I mean. If you didn’t, spoilers follow. We are deep into episode … Read more
Alice gives her verdict on an award-winning beer, and Henry dives into to a juicy Californian chardonnay. BACH BREWING BILLFISH APA 5.8%, 6 X 330ml cans, $22.99 from Fine Wine Delivery Co As a small child, I had a morbid fascination with the bill of a marlin that lived in our attic. It was huge. … Read more
The somewhat inexplicable 14th (!) season of Criminal Minds starts tonight on TVNZ. To celebrate, super-fan Jean Sergent reveals the cult classic series hidden within the long-running procedural. Three years ago I was in London doing a pretty great acting fellowship, but somehow I still found time to watch Criminal Minds on my laptop, which I perched … Read more
There are hearts on sleeves and mullets on heads as week seven of the Bachelor Australia brutally halves six sheilas down to three. Miriam Moore recaps. The very last group date sees a ’50s-clad Nick take the squad of six bowling. Sophie can’t stop looking at his muscles, whereas I can’t stop looking at his … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Health minister plans crackdown on synthetic drugs, new research and development tax credits announced, and Taxpayers Union rumbled for using fake names. Health minister David Clark has announced that he will push for synthetic drugs to be reclassified as Class A, reports Newshub. That would put them on … Read more
A new radical left group has formed with the goal of making socialism a reality in New Zealand. But what would that even look like? And will they have any chance of success by rejecting parliamentary politics? You’ve probably seen them on the news. If there’s an event on that has a militant looking protest … Read more
Jesse Mulligan walks us through some of the spittle-flecked feedback he received for making the case that a capital gains tax is obviously a good and necessary idea. What is it like to be a woman? I don’t know, but they tell me it involves a lot of being corrected, patronised and explained to by … Read more
Poet Laureate Selina Tusitala Marsh tells of the time she went swimming in deep, deep water with novelist Lloyd Jones at Byron Bay. The first time I meet Lloyd Jones is nearly my last. He’d promised me breakfast and a dip near Captain Cook’s Lookout – I should’ve suspected something then. Indigenous encounters and all. We … Read more
Hot take: video games are fun. Hotter take: even super fun things can bring out the very worst in you. Brian McDonald examines the effect that gaming had on his anxiety – and vice versa. There’s a point at which any game, for all narrative and enjoyment purposes, is over and done with. You’ve completed … Read more
In one of her first interviews since she walked away from politics, Metiria Turei talks to Waveney Russ about her new life as an artist studying at the Dunedin School of Art. Metiria Turei and I sit across the table from one another in front of her most recent piece of art at Blue … Read more
A bee-based riff on The Hunger Games, a remake of your favourite problematic 80s film, and The Spinoff’s very own new doco-series. This is what’s new to Lightbox in October! Get It to Te Papa (weekly from October 16) “Get It to Te Papa began in great and abiding failure,” says Hayden Donnell, host of The Spinoff’s … Read more
Genetic modification offers space-age healthcare, booming agriculture and a new weapon in the war on invasive species – if we choose to use it. Don Rowe reports. Since the first primordial slime congealed on our infant planet, bacteria and viruses have been locked in a state of total war. Reliant on other living cells to … Read more
A year on since launching Nisa – an ethical underwear company that employs former refugees – founder Elisha Watson reflects on all the things she’s learnt about running a business with a social cause. Quitting your job to pursue your dream is one of life’s great cliches. You’re probably working a desk job – stable, lucrative, maybe … Read more
Jogai Bhatt talks to Abdul Kay, a young Auckland rapper who rose quickly from obscurity only to go silent, about his comback single ‘September Freestyle’. By this time last year, Abdul Kay had already caught the attention of the local hip-hop scene. With a co-sign from industry heavyweight David Dallas, the newcomer was able to … Read more
Ngāi Tahu spent 150 years in cultural and economic poverty, dispossessed of the vast majority of their whenua and mahinga kai. Today, 20 years on from their landmark settlement with the Crown, they’re sitting atop a billion dollar pūtea, writes Don Rowe. At the time of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, almost half … Read more