More than a quarter of those who voted gave their electorate vote to someone from a different party than the one they backed for their party vote. Chris McDowall breaks it down. View Chris McDowall’s incredible interactive mapping every booth’s votes from the 2017 general election here Last Friday the Electoral Commission released detailed statistics on how … Read more
Yesterday’s ruling offers useful guidance on assessing the line between inspiration and infringement, but we haven’t heard the last on this case, writes intellectual property law expert Kate McHaffie. In a lengthy decision handed down yesterday afternoon, the National Party was found to have infringed copyright in Eminem’s iconic song “Lose Yourself” and was ordered to … Read more
Drake’s chart-dominating, streaming record-breaking ‘playlist’ More Life is a grab-bag of global influences. To celebrate Drake’s forthcoming Auckland shows (and a limited offer of $59.90 tickets – see details below), here’s David Bell to guide you through it all. This article was first published in March 2017. I’ve always found Drake to be a kind … Read more
The long-awaited decision on the National Party’s use of an ‘Eminem-esque’ track in its 2014 election advertising has finally arrived. These are our favourite parts from the judgment. The case of Eight Mile Style vs The National Party has all the makings of a wonderful, epic, hideous hip-hop opera. Even the judge has the perfect … Read more
An essay about race, immigration, and KFC by Sri Lankan-born, Hutt Valley-raised novelist Brannavan Gnanalingam. On our way to New Zealand in 1986, we stopped at Singapore Airport. In this of all places, my dad bumped into his brother, whom he hadn’t seen for years. We were going to a new life in New Zealand. … Read more
A destination playground saved Angela Cuming’s little family from cracking, so just why does her local council reckon the cost of them is ‘bordering on obscene’? During the long, long days I was stuck at home with three boys under three I would sometimes lock myself in the woodshed so my kids wouldn’t see or … Read more
New Zealand’s top broadcaster has been on a journey since Winston Peters went left. Madeleine Chapman charts the Hosk’s passage through Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief. The takes have been coming in hot since Winston Peters rose ceremony’d the entire country and chose to marry Labour (and adopt their large adult son called the Greens). But … Read more
One of the biggest surprises of the 2017 election was Tamati Coffey’s win in the electorate of Waiariki – unseating Te Ururoa Flavell and ushering the Māori Party out of parliament. Campaign chair Haydn Marriner takes us inside Team Tamati’s strategy. It was deemed by all political pundits, Māori and non-Māori (aside from Morgan Godfery) … Read more
The surprise Twitter hit of this election season has been NZ Art Parallels, the account which reveals the previously hidden connections between world art history and New Zealand politics and media. And now NZ Art Parallels is joining The Spinoff for a new monthly column. The Spinoff Parallel of the Month Here is Bill English … Read more
Duncan Greive watches Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders, a miniseries following the true 90s case that gripped the world and caused a media circus. You know the true crimewave is getting out of hand when Law & Order is getting in on the game. The franchise, of which True Crime: the Menendez … Read more
We’re hugely excited to announce that artist and writer Toby Morris is the latest addition to team Spinoff. Below, the Pencilsword creator (and one half of op-ed duo Toby & Toby, along with Spinoff veteran Toby Manhire) introduces his new project. But first, editor Duncan Greive welcomes him aboard. Ever since The Spinoff started, I’ve … Read more
Jacinda Ardern and Winston Peters yesterday signed an agreement establishing a governing coalition. In the service of democracy and brevity, we’ve chiseled it, roughly, to its core. Read the agreement proper here. Read the digested Labour-Green deal here. Winston Peters and Jacinda Ardern. Photo: Labour Party It’s a coalition but not a bloody merger, get … Read more
The confidence and supply deal that Jacinda Ardern and James Shaw signed yesterday comes in at seven pages, or an appositely sized PDF of 4.20 MB (not kidding). Read the agreement proper here. And read the digested Labour-NZ First coalition deal here. Boiled down, this is pretty much how it goes: The MOU was actually … Read more
Christchurch’s Wunderbar in Lyttelton attracted fury today after a refugees advocate posted a photograph which seems to run counter to its ‘nice people only’ slogan. Henry Oliver called to ask what they were up to. Last night, Murdoch Stephens of Double the Quota, a refugee advocacy group, posted a photo of Wunderbar, a Lyttelton bar … Read more
Another gold medal for the green-and-gold in the contest for the worst media opinions on New Zealand’s electoral outcome. Toby Manhire reads them so you don’t have to. The latest addition to the pantheon of Bad Takes In The International Media On The New Zealand Election comes from USA Today. In a post explaining how … Read more
‘Fake’ animal proteins are set to disrupt world markets – and much faster than our agriculture industry is anticipating, argues food strategist Dr Rosie Bosworth. New Zealand’s agricultural sector has been having a rough time of late. If waking up to a centre-left government wasn’t enough of a nightmare for most Kiwi farmers, then the … Read more
Our Forever Hopeful Club columnist Kat McKenzie is back with the second instalment of her series on the hopes, fears and medical practicalities of trying to be a mother. Over three instalments, Kat is sharing her IVF journey; you can read part one here. An embryo transfer is one of the easiest steps in the process. … Read more
This week on My Kitchen Rules NZ, Chris and Bex learn you can lead ten amateur foodies to Wanaka for tea, but you can’t make them like it. From Charlotte and Maddie’s al fresco kitchen nightmare in Auckland, we head south, to Wanaka, for the penultimate instant restaurant of MKRNZ ’17. Hosts Chris and Bex … Read more
Is it OK for the second biggest party to take the reins of power? Former governor-general Sir Jerry Mateparae answers this and other questions about post-election government-making. In New Zealand it falls to the governor-general, as the Queen’s representative, to formally swear in a new government. Given the ballyhoo around the sight of Jacinda Ardern … Read more
Arguably the best part of Armageddon is the cosplay, so we sent photographer Joel Thomas along to the Auckland event to capture the colour and creativity. (Also keep your optics peeled for Sam Brooks’ write up of the cosplay contest coming later today). This post, like all our gaming content, comes to your peepers only … Read more
New Zealand recently topped an international study for ‘educating for the future’. But education futurist Frances Valintine says that, far from punching above our weight, our system is preparing students for a world that no longer exists. This week I found my 17-year-old son busy sanding (yes, with sandpaper) his name off his calculator, as … Read more
A memoir of the end of a marriage by playwright Renée. At the age of 50, Otaki author Renée started to write the plays that made her one of New Zealand’s most acclaimed writers. Her focus was on creating work that put women centre stage. Now, at 88, she has written a memoir; it tells … Read more
Tara Ward counts down the top ten moments from ‘A. Malcolm’, the sixth episode of Outlander season three. Contains major spoilers, obviously. Say your goodbyes, Sassenachs, because this week’s Outlander will strike you down dead. The emotion will slay you, the passion will cut you into a thousand tiny pieces, and you’ll end up a wizened, wrinkled … Read more
Auckland City Limits (or ACL for short) returns on 3 March 2018 after a one-year hiatus. These are our favourite songs from the just-announced lineup. Beck – ‘Loser’ I know wanting Beck to play ‘Loser’ at a show in 2018 is as annoying as hoping Radiohead play ‘Creep’ or going to a Billy Corgan solo … Read more
Despite having relatively dry skin and therefore dry lives, The Real Pod team still assemble to talk about a scandalous week four on Married at First Sight NZ. This week on The Real Pod, there’s more chat flying around than Haydn’s DMs on a Sunday morning. On Married at First Sight NZ, the couples have … Read more
Alex Casey power ranks the fourth week of Married at First Sight NZ, including new living quarters, a tonne of counselling and one very overdue breakup. This week, the cocktail party continued well past that tipping point in an evening where any reasonable person would have already left to get a McChicken and sob to … Read more
Those visual novel games can be extremely hit or miss, but Matthew Codd reckons locally made Inverness Nights is a high water mark for the genre. A few months ago, Kiwi developer Maddi Mackenzie released Inverness Nights. “Break up with your boyfriend in Inverness Nights, a queer historical fantasy visual novel,” the media release said, calling … Read more
There are few areas of government policy in which the gap between National and Labour was as stark as in transport. We republish Greater Auckland’s Matt Lowrie on the likely priorities of the incoming government. When Winston Peters announced he’d chosen a coalition with Labour to form a new government on Thursday much of the … Read more
As Treaty commentator Joshua Hitchcock prepares to return home from London, he is optimistic for the new Labour government, but argues that reflecting on past mistakes will help them regain Māori trust. Ka mua, ka muri. This rather elegant Māori proverb reminds us that to move forward, we must keep one eye on our past. … Read more