Beef + Lamb New Zealand says farmers care just as much about the environment as everyone else, and with its new Environment Strategy and Implementation plan, it plans to help sheep and beef farmers promote reduced carbon emissions, cleaner water, thriving biodiversity, and healthy productive soils. I recently spoke at a farmer’s event in Christchurch with … Read more
If New Zealand is to crack the problems of unaffordable housing, the government must look seriously at how the better parts of America finance infrastructure, argues Eric Crampton, This seems about the worst possible month to be suggesting that anybody should try to emulate anything going on in America. The place seems to be going … Read more
Marketing guru Brandon Digital (Ra Pomare) explains how Matariki can transform your boring small business into an exciting “woke brand’. The Spinoff TV is on THREE at 9.45pm from June 22. Thanks to NZ on Air.
New verse by Dunedin writer Vincent O’Sullivan. Lines from way back The Senate seethes, as in an emperor’s reign. The deals are done, speeches endorse the corpse. Pussy and circuses stake out their claim. Immigrants, bankers, slip their varied hoops. Maggots exult that nature bred them white, Their slither vermicules to get it … Read more
The Checkpoint host’s departure for a new role at TVNZ is the latest blow to the public broadcaster in a tumultuous 2018. Toby Manhire attempts to get his head around it all. One of the biggest beasts of New Zealand broadcasting, John Campbell will leave RNZ on September 14, almost three years to the day … Read more
Listen to Alex Casey, Leonie Hayden and Michele A’Court tackle the past month in women, news and popular culture, with thanks to our friends at The Women’s Bookshop. This month on On the Rag, we are reunited in the bowels of Mediaworks for another hour of shrill women’s chat. Alex and Leonie unpack their first experience being … Read more
The week’s best-selling books at the Unity stores in Willis St, Wellington, and High St, Auckland. WELLINGTON UNITY 1 Warlight by Michael Ondaatje (Jonathan Cape, $35) Ondaatje’s Facebook page features a photo of himself as a young, really good-looking guy, lying on his side, wearing jeans, looking all soulful and brooding; the caption is a … Read more
Rare’s popular-ish platformer Banjo-Kazooie turns 20 this year. Uther Dean reflects on what the series meant for him back then – and what it means now. Banjo-Kazooie is 20 years old. Time is cruel. These things are connected. Time is cruel because it can’t be 20 years since I first played the wild frolic through a … Read more
Food policing and lunchbox shaming has got to stop. Well intentioned as it may be, it’s not working – and it’s hurting our most vulnerable families, writes Dr Rebekah Graham. School lunchboxes are a site of moral judgement for parents. Meeting societal expectations with regards to providing socially acceptable items can cause feelings of embarrassment … Read more
Martyn Pepperell talks to Dictaphone Blues’s Ed Castelow on Tinder, synths and redefining indie success. Auckland singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and studio tinkerer Ed Castelow has been a regular fixture on stages around New Zealand and Australia since the mid-2000s, playing in bands like degrees.k, The Ruby Suns, The Brunettes, Anthonie Tonnon and The Conjurors, and his own … Read more
Every week on The Primer we ask a local business or product to introduce themselves in eight simple takes. This week we talk to James Denton, owner of Auckland’s plastic-free supermarkets GoodFor. ONE: How did GoodFor start and what was the inspiration behind it? GoodFor started out of frustration with the amount of plastic I was consuming and the sheer difficulty to … Read more
A birth, an Oprah, a Serena, a Moira, a denial, a denial, a denial. Tara Ward recaps episode 11 of The Handmaid’s Tale, season 2. This I (do not) know is true, but I do know Oprah was the welcome voice of the resistance in this week’s intense episode of The Handmaid’s Tale. June listened to … Read more
Online gaming is broadly illegal to operate in NZ, so how come government controlled Lotto NZ is running virtual betting with games like Texas Hold’Em and Lucky Falls, asks Branko Marcetic Ever finished dusting off the grimy shavings of another unsuccessful Instant Kiwi scratchie and thought, “I wish I could buy another of these while … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Battle rages over dumped health targets, Dairy NZ condemns milking shed cruelty, and a spotlight on an important NZ Herald series. A major story that has been bubbling away this week that hasn’t really been covered here is the government quietly ditching National’s health targets, that were … Read more
Fifty-two people were trapped on an Auckland train last night with no access to toilets, no food and no information from Auckland transport, for over three hours. A city bound train on the Eastern Line struck something outside the Meadowbank station just before 8:30pm on Thursday and the train was still stuck there at 11:50pm, … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. In our monthly Business Chat special, Simon Pound speaks with Maria Slade of Callaghan Innovation and Rebecca Stevenson, business editor of The Spinoff, about the business stories making the news that month. This month Simon, Maria and Rebecca discuss … Read more
“I am wary of reading any more feminist manifestos these days because they are very exhausting! Who the fuck just loves themselves all the time?”, writes Charlotte Graham-McLay, in her review of a brilliant new memoir hailed as a feminist manifesto but it isn’t, really. All I want famous women to talk about these days … Read more
Surfing is having its own #MeToo moment and the reckoning is long past due, surfer Trevor McKewen explains. In a galaxy a long, long time ago, I started surfing and there were no women. Actually, it wasn’t a galaxy. It was Main Beach on the Gold Coast in the mid-1970s as a recently transplanted Kiwi … Read more
A 17-year-old New Zealander is being detained in an Australian immigration detention centre for adults, in direct contravention of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. New Zealander Rebekah Holt, the only journalist to have spoken to him, tells how she uncovered his story. Watch last night’s Newshub story about this case here. … Read more
The NZ Film Festival opens in Auckland on July 19, a week later in Wellington, and then through the country. David Larsen and a team of obsessive cinephiles will be filing capsule reviews for the Spinoff once we’re under way. But first, David offers his advice on navigating the programme A few years ago my … Read more
New research shows women ask for rises as much as men, but just don’t get them, and it’s an indictment of all that ‘bootstrap’ bluster about equality, writes Madeleine Holden In an interesting development for anyone with skin in the game, new research shows that female employees ask for raises as often as their male … Read more
Welcome to the Cheat Sheet, a clickable, shareable, bite-sized FAQ on the news of the moment. Today: meet the new Mad Butcher, same as the old Mad Butcher? Hooray! Your old mate The Mad Butcher is now back in family hands! A press release proclaimed it is so: “With the Mad Butcher franchise back in family … Read more
New Zealand may have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to join Eurovision – so who would give us the best shot of a win? Eurovision enthusiast Robyn Gallagher has some thoughts. The Eurovision Song Contest – the annual music extravaganza that combines songs, performance, fireworks and always some weird stuff – usually only pops onto the radar … Read more
A Kiwi company wants to make fencing and farm dogs redundant, creating a collar equipped with audio and vibrational cues that can be remotely controlled from the farmhouse – and measure fertility. But is it good for the cows? It has a Tesla-esque logo, marketing language swiped straight from Tinder and is backed by Silicon … Read more
Alice Neville went along to The Creation Dinner, a pop-up restaurant by MasterChef winners Karena and Kasey Bird, and it was bloody good. Ko tēnei te tīmatatanga. This is the beginning. In the darkness, sky father Ranginui and earth mother Papatūānuku are locked together in a never-ending embrace, their many children crushed between them. After … Read more
In part two of The Spinoff’s great recall list, we look at various items targeted towards parents and children, such as toys, strollers, cots, carriers, rattles, bottles, and kids pyjamas. Below is a selection of recalled items we think are most relevant to consumers (part one looked at a selection of common household items). Of … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Government moves to address construction worker shortage, data on regressiveness of fuel tax released, and Sir John Key pops up as a lobbyist. It’s been a big 24 hours of news about the logistics of the Kiwibuild programme, in which the government intends to build 100,000 … Read more
Māui Street editor Morgan Godfery chats to ‘minister for everything’ Andrew Little about nation building and resolving Treaty settlements on ‘marae time’. Old timers will tell you the words “former Labour leader” are a curse. Former Labour leader Phil Goff. Former Labour leader David Shearer. Former Labour leader David Cunliffe. Former Labour leader is the … Read more
Alex Casey goes for a stroll on the foot-shaped sands of Heartbreak Island, week three. I truly couldn’t have put it any better than Josh himself, when he looked down the barrel of the camera and sincerely announced that “Lord of the Flies is kicking off.” Except, this time, the infamous conch is a tumbler … Read more