One of the best T20 bowlers in the world is currently without a cricketing gig. What does the future hold for Mitchell McClenaghan? It’s telling that out of all of the many shirts worn by cricketer Mitchell McClenaghan, his favourite one is still the black shirt of New Zealand. But he’s been forced to watch … Read more
Cricinfo’s Mohammad Isam was touring with the Bangladeshi team when they headed toward Al Noor mosque on March 15 to pray. He recalls that fateful day, and how it stayed with him. The last time I saw Black Caps media managers Willy Nicholls and James Bennett was half an hour before my world came crashing … Read more
In the words of wise old owl Aunt Lydia, good things come to those who wait. Tara Ward recaps the first three episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale season three. Just as tinned tomatoes arrived in the supermarkets of Gilead, our own personal apocalypse was today blessed with three episodes of a brand new season of The … Read more
With three episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale arriving express to Lightbox tonight, Alex Casey prepares you to return to life in Gilead. Starch your bonnets, straighten your Scrabble tiles and plot to overthrow the oppressive patriarchal system because The Handmaid’s Tale returns to Lightbox tonight with three whopper episodes for you to devour like your … Read more
Climate treaties, sustainability goals and energy commitments are proliferating around the world. The answers to these targets must involve new materials and research in this area is happening in New Zealand, writes Dr Geoff Willmott. Last Friday, students across the country walked out of school for the second time this year in protest against climate … Read more
She’s only 28, but Bailey Wiley already feels like an industry veteran. She’s been grinding away in Dunedin, Berlin, the US, and Auckland for years, and her latest EP is a smooth, personal reflection of these experiences. She sat down to discuss her new EP, the catharsis of Berlin, and the difference between her generation … Read more
After the Black Caps’ victory over Sri Lanka in their first match of the 2019 Cricket World Cup, Calum Henderson has made an important update to his ranking of every New Zealand ODI shirt. Has any other team in world sport worn such a wide and varied range of colours as the TelstraClear New Zealand … Read more
Ever wondered what those huddles of blokes with their tiny yachts are up to? Alex Casey hit the Onepoto pond to find out. This story originally ran in Barker’s 1972 magazine. It was a 250,000-year journey to get to one perfect moment in Onepoto Domain on Auckland’s North Shore. All that needed to happen was a volcano erupting, … Read more
Ahead of the Black Caps’ first match in the 2019 World Cup, superfan Simon Day longs for his former leader. Every day I miss Brendon McCullum. Whenever he was on the field as captain I felt an unusual sensation as a longterm Black Caps fan – optimism. No matter what the scoreboard said, I thought “we’re … Read more
The wellbeing budget is a genuinely big idea, and deserves to transcend a messy week, writes Duncan Greive. Nineteen-thirty-four was not a good year for the USA. Five years into the Great Depression, and five years from the worst world war. The economy stubbornly static, dangerous fascists rising across the Atlantic, the dust bowl at … Read more
The Red Bull 64 Bars series has become a hotbed of local hip-hop. Hussein Moses asked the artists who had stepped up to the mic to break down their favourite one-liners from a series that’s full of them. Now seven seasons deep, and on the eve of the next group of young talent stepping up … Read more
Despite dominating the political agenda for much of the year, tax was barely mentioned in the budget. That doesn’t mean the work there is over, writes Greg Thompson of Grant Thornton New Zealand. Budget 2019 was strangely silent on all things tax – odd given the level of investment and attention the Tax Working Group … Read more
Recognising that mental health is affected by the environment we live means we can focus on getting the fence built at the top of the cliff rather than the therapist at the bottom, writes Olivia Wills. The build-up to the world-first “wellbeing” budget was anything but dull. With documents leaked and a hack which was … Read more
Labour’s debut wellbeing budget is a solid jump to the social spending left but could hardly be described as transformational, writes Maria Slade in Wellington. With its wood panelling and forest green décor parliament’s neo-classical 1920s debating chamber has a surprisingly inviting feel. Normally a humble business reporter based on Auckland’s CBD fringe, I felt … Read more
The stakes are high for Grant Robertson’s much heralded Wellbeing Budget in the year delivery. What are the expert verdicts? Susan St John: Creditable, but not good enough The government deserves credit for the reframing of the budget to reflect human wellbeing outcomes. This modernisation is well overdue. The new approach should mean there is … Read more
The commitments in today’s budget are to be welcomed, but they could use some better defined targets to focus ambitions, writes former Reserve Bank chairman Arthur Grimes Wellbeing budgets have been delivered every year since the 1890s when the Liberal government introduced old-age pensions, free primary education and built the first state houses. In 1905, Prime … Read more
Budget 2019: Fresh from the parliamentary budget lockup, Spinoff business editor Maria Slade summarises the funding announcements from Labour’s first Wellbeing Budget. Mental health services, KiwiRail, beneficiaries and startup companies are some of the big winners on a government budget day that has otherwise been dominated by accusations of leaking and calls for ministers’ heads. … Read more
Season three of The Handmaid’s Tale drops on June 6, exclusively on Lightbox. Brush up on all the bonnets, babies and body horror of the first two seasons here. !!! Contains spoilers for season 1 and 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale !!! The first three episodes of season three of The Handmaid’s Tale drop on Lightbox … Read more
Budget 2019: What are the Ardern government’s much-talked about Budget Responsibility Rules, and why doesn’t it have to stick to them? When the Labour government came to power in 2017 it set itself five rules of engagement for handling the country’s money. The Budget Responsibility Rules are self-imposed and do not have any legal standing, … Read more
Māori are looking to the Wellbeing Budget to increase targeted funding for initiatives like Whānau Ora, a system that, according to its architect, still hasn’t reached its potential. Whānau Ora was one of the Māori party’s flagship policies. In 2010, a partnership with the Key government secured its implementation. Over nearly a decade, it has been … Read more
Budget 2019: Unless we can find some way of taxing wealth as well as incomes, New Zealand is headed for an intergenerational economic meltdown, writes Grant Thornton tax partner Murray Brewer. It’s hard to get your head around how much money the government has. The slew of spending announcements in the run-up to Budget Day makes … Read more
The 2019 budget is coming out this Thursday, and with it a whole bunch of impenetrable jargon. We’ve picked out some of the key words to keep in mind as it is being read. A Ambitious The last budget was typically described as ambitious. Now the word gets thrown around a lot to describe the … Read more
Budget 2019: Should the collection of taxes be the point at which we talk about fairness, or should fairness be part of a completely different conversation, asks Grant Thornton tax partner Oksana Simonoff. It’s counter-intuitive, but when we talk about tax fairness we aren’t really talking about tax. We’re really talking about politics, economics and … Read more
At over five hundred million streams, Ava Max is proving to be one of the biggest popstars of 2019. Not only that, writes Sam Brooks, she might actually be the most perfect. Ava Max is like a Frankenstein of a popstar, which I mean in the best way possible (also yes, I know Frankenstein was … Read more
Budget 2019: Opposition finance spokesperson Amy Adams on the rhetoric behind the first wellbeing budget, coming later this week. This week will see the Labour-led government produce their much hyped ‘wellbeing budget’. That of course raises the questions of what wellbeing means, how it is assessed and how this budget will be any different to … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand, with the interview available as both audio and a transcribed excerpt. This week he talks to Amber Taylor from Ara Journeys and Callaghan … Read more
All four seasons of Laura Linney’s cancer comedy The Big C drops on Lightbox today. Sam Brooks writes about the series’ surprisingly uplifting journey through a woman’s nightmare. There’s a moment late in the first season of The Big C that hits you right in the gut. After finding out his mother Cathy (Laura Linney) has terminal cancer, her … Read more
Now that we know what the Wellbeing Budget is, the question is how we can create the right political and social environment to support it, says Grant Thornton’s Barry Baker. Growing up in Southland in a single-parent home, my family relied on the Domestic Purposes Benefit and the generosity of charities like Birthright. During that … Read more
If the wellbeing budget is going to do something about the long-term productivity of the country, it must address the growing gap between digital haves and have-nots, writes Grant Thornton’s Helen Fortune. Many fear that increasing digitisation and automation will result in the mass loss of jobs. But that’s not what happened when the first … Read more