All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has suggested the government should help the All Blacks retain key players. Here’s why that would be such a terrible idea. Now, in fairness, he may have been joking – it’s never particularly easy to tell with Steve Hansen. After meeting PM Jacinda Ardern and minister of finance and sport … Read more
The five finalists of APRA’s Maioha Award for contemporary Māori songwriting were announced today. Miriama Aoake looks at the final five and their place in the future of te reo Māori. This August has been a particularly busy month for Māori music; a celebration of the capabilities and dexterity of a thriving community. Alien Weaponry, a teenage thrash … Read more
Shane Te Pou looks at the Ministry of Education’s plans to close down the current charter school model, and what it means for Māori education. Unleashing the Rogernomics revolution on New Zealand without warning and without care for the short-term consequences was Labour’s greatest shame of the 20th century. More recently Labour shamed itself with the … Read more
Z Energy sells more petrol than anyone else in New Zealand while also trumpeting its environmental record. Today it put its money where its PR is in purchasing a large majority stake in Wellington startup Flick Electric Co. An unlikely marriage – more an adoption, really – has just been announced between Z Energy and … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Animal rights concerns hit the agenda, tenancy law changes set to be announced, and PM Ardern gives her first minister the boot. Animal rights has been big news over the weekend, with a 500 strong protest in Auckland. Māori TV was there, and the quotes they gathered … Read more
Flying Nun’s rightful place in New Zealand history has been secured with the acquisition of the legendary label’s master tapes by the Alexander Turnbull Library. If Alexander Turnbull was around these days, he’d be your classic bearded, single-origin-coffee-and-fancy-toast-loving Wellington chap. Had he been at his peak in the early 1980s, on the other hand, he … Read more
Keep the Peace Makarau Valley says the controversial Auckland Shooting Club is filing resource consent applications that are incomplete and unrepresentative of the club’s real ambitions for expansion. A controversial Auckland gun club is pressing ahead with their plan to build Australasia’s ‘largest shooting facility’ in a sleepy rural valley – and the council is … Read more
Last night Rose Matafeo won the Edinburgh Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, one of the most prestigious awards for comedians anywhere. Here’s why that matters. First up: What’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival? The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the biggest fringe festival in the world. With well over three thousand shows, there’s nothing that’s … Read more
Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. Duncan Greive: The real ratings of NZ’s news sites shows some have a big problem “For 20 straight days we didn’t crest 60,000 pageviews – our marker for a good day – even once. It had come from nowhere: between the start of June and … Read more
Auckland sake sommelier Wayne Shennen is on a mission to spread the gospel of the oft-misunderstood Japanese tipple. Like many folk, Wayne Shennen used to hate chardonnay. “My personal experience was that I knew it was rubbish, because I’d had 10 bad chardonnays. Then 15 years later I tried it again and had a decent … Read more
This week, Airbnb announced the New Zealand-wide launch of its ‘experiences’ guided tours and the forthcoming Airbnb Plus. These extensions to the global brand’s business got Henry Oliver thinking about the future of travel and the places we call home. Friends, I have seen the future. And, I must say, it’s a little underwhelming. Rather … Read more
Anton Smith worked at big law firms for years, and welcomes signs the profession wants to change their workplace culture. But, he warns, without a massive industry shift any plans for improvement are doomed to fail. While I wholeheartedly support Sarah Mitchell’s recent advice to young lawyers in The Spinoff, better coping strategies won’t fix … Read more
Why is Australian politics so poisonous? A lot of the blame can be laid at the feet of the right-wing media, which has given a megaphone to reactionary forces within the Liberal Party, writes the University of Melbourne’s Denis Muller. Note: This article was originally published on Thursday 23 August, before the second spill that … Read more
Concussions are a problem rugby has never really reckoned with, and they have the power to truly change how we view the game. Madeleine Chapman investigates. It’s a long-running narrative that some of the best All Blacks in history have been those able to get knocked down and get back up again, both figuratively and … Read more
Television icon Nigel Latta returns to TV, and this time he’s focused on the one thing that governs us all: the brain. Haimona Grey talks to the man himself. “Our belief has always been that people are interested in interesting things. Sometimes TV patronises the audience, it has a belief that people won’t stay if … Read more
How hard can it be to film a Youtube beauty tutorial? The On the Rag team share their makeup expertise. Everyone knows that one of the greatest Youtube genres was On the Rag is ‘Chit Chat Get Ready With Me’, a beautiful format where beautiful people put on their beautiful makeup beautifully while you sit there … Read more
Because what your Friday night really needs is the return of Anne The Champagne Lady and two ladies in suits. Tonight on The Spinoff TV, your friendly hosts Leonie and Alex eschew their usual look for a quicker option: suits and man-size speed makeup. The result? A weirder show than usual with hidden avocados, moon … Read more
The roulette wheel of Australian politics has spun again, with the marble landing on the conservative MP Scott Morrison. The Sydney MP and treasurer has come through the middle of the Malcolm Turnbull vs Peter Dutton hellfire clash to become Liberal leader and prime minister designate, beating Dutton in the final round 45-40. But: who … 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, we’ve got an amazing new reality series to recap in The Bachelor Australia, Alex has torn her calf muscle and Jane has brought her weird cow lunchbox out of … Read more
Impossibly, Lady GaGa’s debut album The Fame came out ten years ago this week. Sam Brooks looks back at the album that launched an icon. I remember where I was when I heard ‘Just Dance’ – and you might remember that ‘Just Dance’ was a hit in New Zealand about a year before it broke through across … Read more
Solo parenting isn’t having a week looking after the kids on your own. Mum of three Julie Fairey explains why the comments about solo parenting don’t respect the real mahi of parents without that back-up – financial, social or otherwise – and why they don’t address the stigmas or inequality around sole parenting. It happened … Read more
A horror week for intensive farming continues as the government promises action on slack regional councils following the release of disturbing footage, writes Don Rowe. The government has promised to take action on intensive agriculture, with funding approved to set up a group that will “assist and at times embarrass” regional councils failing to enforce … Read more
The week’s bestselling books at the Unity stores in Willis St, Welllington, and High St, Auckland. WELLINGTON UNITY 1 We Can Make a Life: A memoir of family, earthquakes and courage by Chessie Henry (Victoria University Press, $35) “I thought I knew the basic outline of what happened that day, but this was the first time … Read more
The Bridges expense leak inquiry will have to balance the wellbeing of someone who might have mental health issues with the integrity of the parliamentary system. One way or another, it’s all rather sad, writes Tim Watkin for RNZ. Well, that’s as clear as mud. And, one way or another, rather sad. We now know … Read more
It’s Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day! All week this week we’ve presented new verse on the delicate subject of fucking; today, we present a poem of much greater significance and importance, by Michael Hall of Dunedin. Constructive Criticism Awww come on ref The guy’s clearly offside Aww come on ref That’s not a penalty Aww … Read more
The pay TV giant has lost customers, it’s making less out of each one, and has cut prices. Yet Duncan Greive reckons their annual result shows they might yet find a way out of the woods. Sky has completed a highly unusual feat in legacy media – reporting an increase in underlying profit, up 2.6% … Read more
It was a very good week to feel quietly smug about living on this side of the ditch, says editor Toby Manhire. The Spinoff TV, 10.45pm Fridays on THREE
The ongoing saga around leaked details of the National leader’s transport spending reveals a party with serious internal problems, writes Jane Patterson for RNZ If National Party leader Simon Bridges wasn’t already sweating he will be now, with a second leak, possibly from within his own caucus. First there was a leak to Newshub about his travel … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Something major is going down in Australia today, two stories of troubling inaction on sexual assault, and m. bovis fears at massive feedlot. In Australian politics today, something will happen. Sorry, I can’t really be any more specific than that, because the events of yesterday were so … Read more