Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: New jobs numbers show hopeful economic situation, provisional approval given for Pfizer vaccine, and proposals for NZ history curriculum announced. The latest top-line economic data shows a recovery is now well underway – however, the overall economic health of the country remains mixed. The biggest news … Read more
Last week Reddit users, including plenty in Aotearoa, took on Wall Street hedge funds. Here’s how they’re feeling now. Aucklander Zoe* is 24, a student, and she refuses to sell her GameStop shares. Her hands are so strong from holding them that, in Reddit lingo, they are made of diamonds. But she’s not holding them … Read more
Intensive care nurse Edith Scott came to London two years ago to experience life in an exciting, diverse global city. Now she’s part of the desperate fight against Covid-19. She tells George Fenwick about the realities of life in an East End Covid ward. Last week, the UK hit a sobering milestone in the Covid-19 … Read more
Allegations of voter interference and dirty politics have rocked the normally benign political landscape of Māngere-Ōtāhuhu, reports Justin Latif. A candidate in the Auckland Council by-election for the Māngere-Ōtāhuhu Local Board is accusing a rival of shoddy politics for publicly airing allegations of voter interference before going to authorities. Six candidates are competing for the … Read more
Countries have a history of acting selfishly – and when they do, everyone loses out, writes Roderick Bailey. According to one recent estimate, more than half of all vaccines against Covid-19 have been reserved for one-seventh of the world’s population. At the time of writing, the UK alone has reportedly secured enough vaccines to give each … Read more
Jacinda Ardern calls 2021 the ‘year of the vaccine’ and New Zealand now has one it can use. Justin Giovannetti reports from the Beehive. New Zealand has given the green light to its first Covid-19 vaccine, with Medsafe announcing provisional approving for a jab from Pfizer and BioNTech that has become a cornerstone of the … Read more
Click here to see interactive data visualisations and watch all five episodes of 100 Year Forecast on our special interactive website. Aotearoa is a steep and rugged country. Our settlements are concentrated in pockets of fertile floodplains, around river mouths or along coastlines. During the last few decades, these places have experienced increased river and coastal flooding. As … Read more
Grounded in the UK, Scarlett Cayford is nostalgic for a very specific reading experience. In order to qualify as an “airport book” a novel must meet a very specific set of requirements. The first, unsurprisingly, is that it must be purchased at an airport. But this is far from being the only defining characteristic of … Read more
The author and intensive care specialist on why he’s hopeful the prime minister will this week make a transformational announcement on Māori health. Maybe it was no coincidence that the country’s new cancer control agency, Te Aho o Te Kahu, released its first report in the week leading up to the commemorations at Waitangi. The … Read more
After a byzantine process, some beautiful performances and a fair splash of luck, the Black Caps will be playing for the biggest prize in cricket – the first ever World Test Championship. Alex Braae explains how they got there. What’s all this then? In June this year, Kane Williamson will lead the Black Caps onto … Read more
Sam Brooks reviews Russell T Davies’ It’s a Sin, which tackles the Aids crisis in a powerful, intimate way. Early on in It’s a Sin, Russell T Davies’ new drama about the HIV/Aids crisis in 1980s London, the disease is still so new that Ritchie – the show’s protagonist – refuses to believe it even … Read more
Salps, that’s what – the humble little plankton Emily Writes believes to be our nation’s greatest creature. She talks to a salp expert about the key role they play in our marine ecosystem. Recently a reader said to me that I’m the only one she knows of who talks about salps. I knew I had … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Māori wards gather momentum, the managed isolation system is effectively full, and drought on the way again in Hawke’s Bay. In the day since an announcement from local government minister Nanaia Mahuta, the concept of Māori wards has generated both momentum and opposition. In case you … Read more
Incensed by yet another sky-high school uniform bill, father-of-three Dylan Reeve tries to get to the bottom of the school uniform racket. For New Zealand parents, the end of January tends to mark the end of one nightmare – the seemingly endless summer school holidays – and the beginning of another: new uniform-stationery-and-shoes season. The … Read more
The chorus of online judgement that appears each time we have a community case could have grave implications for New Zealand’s Covid-19 response, writes Ayesha Verrall, an infectious diseases doctor and associate minister of health. It’s never easy telling someone they have HIV. But having done it dozens of times, I have grown more comfortable … Read more
Long-time fans Jane Yee and Tara Ward discuss the love, life and laughs of the first two episodes of The Bachelorette NZ. Tara Ward: Meet me on the red carpet of your wildest dreams Jane Yee, because it’s time to recap the new season of The Bachelorette NZ, New Zealand’s most pashiest reality series. I’m … Read more
Ben Thomas, Annabelle Lee Mather and Toby Manhire kick off the year in political podcast punditry, taking on the major parties, Waitangi plans, councils, and the whopping great climate report. As news reaches Gone By Lunchtime that it’s already the second month of the year, The Spinoff’s political podcast triumvirate sits down to study the … Read more
High-profile and controversial figures often use PR consultancies and the media to help clean up their public perception. But as Pattrick Smellie of BusinessDesk reports, it can easily go the other way. Every journalist loves an exclusive scoop. So much so that last weekend, the country’s main rival news publishers, NZME and Stuff, both published … Read more
Click here to see interactive data visualisations and watch all five episodes of 100 Year Forecast on our special interactive website. The future of rainfall in Aotearoa is complicated. As the country warms up, some places will get drier, while others will become far wetter. These changes will not be spread evenly through the year. … Read more
There’s a by-election happening in South Auckland and, as Justin Latif reports, you’d struggle to find a more diverse group of candidates. What do a globetrotting singer, a record-breaking weightlifter, an ex-fisherwoman, a social media expert, a radio show host and an IT guy all have in common? Not much, other than that they all … Read more
Some people have an ‘appreciate from afar’ approach to nature. But this summer, with all the encouragement for New Zealanders to explore Aotearoa, more of us are biting the bullet and heading into the great outdoors, writes the Department of Conservation’s ‘anonymous DOC blogger’. First published on DOC’s Conservation Blog. It’s not that I don’t … Read more
A letter offering condolences to David Townsend’s wife greatly exaggerated his death. It was amusing, but also concerning, he writes. It was just another sunny, summery start to the Wellington weekend. A lunch out at a friend’s for my wife and me: a delicious rosé the lively escort to a classy menu. And a fascinating … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: School year beginning with added challenges, Mahuta moves against petitions opposing Māori wards, and fishing company could lose vessel over illegal trawling. Schools are beginning to go back after a summer break, and into a year that will present some deep challenges. That’ll be true whether … Read more
Ahead of Waitangi Day, Jacinta Ruru and Jacobi Kohu-Morris imagine an alternative to New Zealand’s constitutional framework that gives Te Tiriti o Waitangi the mana it deserves and Māori a meaningful seat at the table. In the early 1980s, fresh from law school, Sir Justice Joe Williams (Ngāti Pūkenga, Te Arawa) wrote ‘Maranga Ake Ai’ … Read more
Wondering why the Covid-19 vaccines were able to be developed so quickly? Fair enough, too. Let me explain, writes Joel Rindelaub. Under the headline “Why I wouldn’t give son vaccine yet”, the NZ Herald yesterday published a story questioning the safety of the latest Covid-19 vaccines. It was irresponsible reporting, and they have rightly removed … Read more
What are you going to be watching in February? The Spinoff rounds up everything that’s coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Neon, Acorn and TVNZ OnDemand. The biggies Men in Kilts (docu-series on Neon from February 15) Outlander fans, rejoice. Two stars from the popular time-travelling drama – … Read more
Most of them commemorate early Pākehā arrival. Some are based on obsolete provincial borders. One celebrates an A&P show. But most importantly, none of them have any meaning to the vast majority of us, writes historian André Brett. Last Monday, January 25, was the Wellington Anniversary Day public holiday. Today, residents of Auckland, Buller, Nelson, … Read more
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for February 1. Contact us at info@spinoff.co.nz. Keep The Spinoff ticking by donating here. 5.45pm: NZ ‘deeply concerned’ about Myanmar coup The minister of foreign affairs, Nanaia Mahuta, has issued a statement in response to events in Myanmar (see 1.45pm). Here it is, in full: “Aotearoa New Zealand is … Read more
Covid-19 lockdowns created a never-before-seen scenario for the world’s wildlife – a break from us. But that wasn’t always a positive, as Mirjam Guesgen explains. With people staying home and travelling less, bird song crescendoed, wild cats suddenly started roaming the streets of Chile and Florida’s loggerhead turtles finally got a chance to lay their … Read more