Do you like cute dogs? Do you like cute people? Wellington-based Starcolt Studios’ first game, Best Friend Forever, might just be the one for you. When you think game studio, you picture dark rooms with menacingly beeping black machines with Tron blue lights, not a lovely office that shares a floor with a counselling service. … Read more
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for August 27, bringing you the latest on New Zealand news and the return of Covid-19. Auckland is in alert level three until 11.59pm on Sunday. The rest of NZ remains in level two. More details here. Official information here. Contact me at stewart@thespinoff.co.nz 7.00pm: The day in sum The … Read more
A multi-million dollar funding boost will help to build ‘phase two’ of the private Taranaki Green School, which costs up to $43,000 a year to attend. But not everyone’s happy with the news. Green co-leader James Shaw’s announcement of an injection of funds into a private Taranaki school as part of the Covid-19 Response and … Read more
In this episode of Bad News, Alice Snedden is forced to confront her own mortality before hosting a very special dinner party to get to grips with the euthanasia debate. In this year’s election, Aotearoa will vote on whether or not to legalise voluntary euthanasia for those with a terminal illness who have less than … Read more
Tesla has delighted investors and stunned rivals with its meteoric rise to the top of the car industry. With the right Kiwisaver fund, New Zealanders have the chance to back a winning and renewable horse, writes Pathfinder CEO John Berry. Tesla’s share price is three times higher than at the start of this year. With … Read more
The man behind The Spinoff’s popular morning newsletter joins Duncan Greive to reveal the secrets of how he manages to consume so much news. Most days Alex Braae starts work at approximately the same time as a dairy farmer. But instead of hopping on a quad bike to go and milk a shed full of … Read more
Since political parties have existed, so too have their enthusiastic young leaders. In exclusive interviews with The Spinoff, eight MPs take us down memory lane on how they got their start in politics. Watch Youth Wings, The Spinoff’s new six-part documentary series that goes behind the O Week stalls to get to know some of … Read more
The victims and families of those who died in the Christchurch mosque shootings tell their stories. Compiled by Tim Brown for RNZ. Warning: This story includes eye-witness accounts of the March 15 Christchurch mosque shootings. On March 15 2019, evil entered two mosques in Christchurch and in just 15 minutes, 51 people lay dead or dying. … Read more
The pandemic exposed inequality in different communities, but it also revealed solutions. This is the first essay in a new series examining the effects of Covid-19 on New Zealand, in partnership with Te Pūnaha Matatini. By Anna Matheson, Krushil Watene, Grace Vujnovich, Turei Mackey. The kids sang and danced. Parents and supporters carried trays of … Read more
Down the rabbit hole and onto Instagram Stories, some of New Zealand’s most popular influencers are now regularly using their platforms to peddle fake news and conspiracy theories that could endanger public health. Jihee Junn finds out what consequences, if any, there are for those actively spreading mistruths. When the government announced Auckland would be … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Mixed messages on freshwater regulations, Christchurch gunman won’t address court, and an important story about what happens after a positive Covid-19 test. National leader Judith Collins has told a Facebook live chat that the government’s freshwater regulations will be “gone by lunchtime” if National wins. As Stuff’s Henry … Read more
As Auckland faced the resurgence of coronavirus, misinformation proliferated, and a lot of people encountered it, according to the latest Stickybeak poll for The Spinoff. Plus: What is Facebook’s impact on NZ society? With a third of New Zealand under alert level three lockdown, recent weeks have seen false claims around the source of the … Read more
For every nugget of gold printed by The Spinoff, there are several more nuggets of slightly less lustrous gold. Hayden Donnell lists some of his rejected story ideas. In my time writing for The Spinoff, I’ve produced mountains of what historians will one day remember as “content gold”. Readers wept when they found out what … Read more
If you’re worried about getting a Covid-19 test because of fears of going into quarantine, don’t be. Here’s what you need to know, to make one scary thing a little less scary. The government’s decision to move community cases of Covid-19 into quarantine facilities has raised fears among some New Zealanders that might stop them … Read more
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for August 26, bringing you the latest on New Zealand news and Covid-19 as it returns to the community. Auckland is now in alert level three and the rest of NZ is in level two. More details here. Official information here. Contact me at stewart@thespinoff.co.nz 7.15pm: The day in sum … Read more
Looking for a family friendly drama to enjoy this lockdown? TVNZ’s new teen series Mystic might be the perfect choice. Out in the television galaxy, somewhere between the giddy orbit of Paw Patrol and Riverdale, lies a dark void where young adults wait patiently for their next favourite series. While there are plenty of TV … Read more
The NZX was taken offline yesterday and today in response to cyber attacks – potentially from Russian gangs. What’s all this then? For the second time in two days, the New Zealand stock exchange NZX was taken offline late this morning in response to offshore cyber attacks. The exchange went down around 11.20am this morning … Read more
With a TV like the Samsung Q950TS it’s possible to set up your living room like a cinema, but ultimately it shouldn’t matter what screen you watch your favourite films and shows on, says Henry Burrell. Despite writing about technology for a living I have never been that fussy about TVs. As long as the … Read more
Kids will love Jonathan King’s graphic novel The Inkberg Enigma, according to actual kids Max (eight) and Iggy (six). In a sleepy fishing town, there’s something strange going on behind the scenes. Luckily two plucky kids called Miro and Zia are here to investigate. It’s The Inkberg Enigma, a new graphic novel for young readers, … Read more
Linda Burgess puts on her mask, goes to the mall, and finds herself slipping into a dystopian level two nightmare… We’re in hell. Sartre wrote hell is other people, and he wrote that when malls were just a twinkle in Mr Westfield’s eye. Given that I’ll be living in track pants for the oxymoronic foreseeable … Read more
Join the the country’s most mellifluous political pod trio, the Alert Level Three, for another late-night lockdown edition of Gone By Lunchtime. Covid-19 continues to dominate the political agenda, with Jacinda Ardern and cabinet having extended level three for the Auckland region until the end of the weekend. Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire … Read more
Cold, damp and mouldy homes are devastating to human heath. But Covid-19 has illuminated the true danger of our national problem. Is there anything more quintessentially Kiwi than a cold, damp home? The black mould on the windowsills, the musty odour in the wardrobe, the sore throat in the morning: they’ve all become the common … Read more
Two weeks into Auckland’s second lockdown, Sam Brooks reflects on the strange distortion of time in alert level three. I remember exactly where I was when Lockdown: The Sequel was announced. Actually, no. I remember exactly where I was when it was announced that Jacinda Ardern and Ashley Bloomfield were going to be making a … Read more
The Spinoff’s Youth Wings series culminated last night in a half-hour debate episode. Today we hand out the awards. Over the past week, our Youth Wings series has showcased the keen young folk who dedicate their prime years to phone banking and hoarding hammering. Young Act’s Felix Poole, Young Labour’s Adam Brand, Young National’s Aryana … Read more
The ‘Free The Nipple’ movement seemed to me a low-priority feminist issue at first, but it’s representative of a much larger concern. Watch Alice Snedden’s Bad News – Women’s Bodies and other episodes in the series here. As a teenager, it would have been my absolute worst nightmare to show my breasts to anyone, let … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Changes rippling through architecture of local government, ‘yellow flag’ case causes concern about Auckland outbreak, and health select committee to reconvene. To lead us off today, a roundup of a few stories taking place at local government level. It keeps going while the rest of the … Read more
Level one might not be back for some time amid warnings the current Auckland outbreak will linger. But the election campaign must go on – one way or another, writes political editor Justin Giovannetti. There’s an election campaign going on out there if you know where to look for it. With the move to extend … Read more
Compliance has dropped compared with the last time New Zealand was in a lockdown, a new Stickybeak poll for The Spinoff shows. Plus: how many people have taken a financial hit? Around the world, regions or nations that have exited then returned to lockdown have faced what has been called “lockdown fatigue”. It was certainly … Read more
The political party has accused the Policy election information website of inaccurately presenting its views to the voting public. The New Conservative party has accused election-information website Policy of misrepresenting its views. In social media videos and posts published over the weekend, the party attacked Policy.nz, saying it showed bias in the way it presented … Read more