Less than half of New Zealand adults have a will. One hundred per cent of New Zealand adults die. Sam Brooks writes on why you need a will. Before you read any further, ask yourself this one question: If I dropped dead right now, reading this piece, would my loved ones know exactly – to … Read more
New Zealanders throw away 295 million single-use cups per year. Alice Neville ponders our obsession with takeaway culture, and looks at what’s needed for consumers to change their behaviour. How many commuters did you see clutching single-use takeaway coffee cups on your way to work this morning? Or how many empty ones are strewn about … Read more
A Twitter spat blew up into a full blown controversy. The trailer for Guns Akimbo makes it look like a fun romp, the sort of film your flatmate who keeps all the bowls in his bedroom watches a million times on your Netflix account. Daniel Radcliffe has guns taped to his hands! Newly minted scream … Read more
Homeownership has long been touted as the great Kiwi dream, but not everyone’s looking for a permanent fix. Jihee Junn explores the rising phenomenon of renters by choice. Even if I had a hundred grand sitting in the bank for me to spend right now, I’m not sure buying a house would be my first … Read more
A group discovered to be digging for proof of a giant pre-Māori race in the limestone caves of Waikato have not lost their minds all of a sudden, but are continuing a legacy of religion-based racism in the area, writes Scott Hamilton. Earlier this month, RNZ’s Susan Strongman reported that amateur archaeologists were digging for … Read more
News broke today that Hannah Tamaki is rumoured to have been cast for the upcoming season of Dancing with the Stars. Emily Writes explains why the religious leader and aspirant politician has no place on the show. Update, 25 February, 4.30pm: Mediaworks has announced that Hannah Tamaki has been dropped from the new season of … Read more
Being a new parent is scary and overwhelming and you can forget that it’s also full of happiness. Simon Day shares the moments of joy that have pulled him through the first eight weeks of being a new dad to twins. It’s 3:36am and I’ve just fed, changed, burped, and put my twin boys back … Read more
Twenty years ago, Auckland’s streets were ruled by diesel-hating narcs. Josie Adams looks back at the short-lived 0800 SMOKEY campaign. For five chaotic weeks in 2000, the Auckland Regional Council experimented with extreme, multi-level peer pressure. The goal: to get cleaner-burning fuel into Auckland cars. The method: turning citizens against each other in a whistle-blowing … Read more
‘A life-changing experience’, ‘The greatest of the great! It must be experienced!’, ‘That show with the dancing lady on the billboard.’ Shen Yun ads are impossible to avoid, but what on earth is it? So what is Shen Yun? According to the Shen Yun website: “It is a brilliant artistic revival and celebration of China’s … Read more
Fresh on the heels of this morning’s news about the prime minister handing someone a bottle opener, The Spinoff can reveal that Jacinda Ardern once offered a man a banana. Jacinda Ardern once offered an Auckland man a banana, according to a tweet viewed by The Spinoff. The MP who would go on to become … Read more
You may not be punching strangers’ seats, but there’s plenty of other behaviour that is guaranteed to make your fellow passengers seethe with rage. Here’s how to travel by plane without making people hate you. You’ve probably seen the video: a woman leans back in her reclined seat as a man punches the back of … Read more
Linda Burgess climbs the eternal staircase at the Opera House in Wellington to watch the virtuoso actor. At the interval her legs are aching. But in the second half, magic happens. There’s one person wearing a face mask, just the one, and it turns his face into a disposable nappy with two scared eyes above. … Read more
A Southland school has been criticised for requiring girls to see a counsellor before opting to wear shorts as their uniform. It’s merely a symptom of a bigger problem, Madeleine Chapman writes. On Sunday, Stuff reported that James Hargest College in Southland would soon allow girls to wear shorts or pants as part of their … Read more
This week I watched a man shoot himself in the foot so many times I was amazed he could walk out of the courtroom. Here’s my honestly held opinion. Leonie Hayden was at Wellington High Court thanks to the support of Spinoff Members. To support independent, homegrown journalism, join today. The high-profile case of Robert … Read more
Summer is the time for buying dollar bags at the dairy. It’s also the time for Madeleine Chapman to rank every single one of them. In a feeble attempt to pre-empt the outrage, I’d like to make some disclaimers. Firstly, the lollies were limited to those sold in dollar bags. Items sold individually (such as … Read more
This summer, Nestlé released two new flavours of Kiwi Onion Dip. Hayden Donnell, our nation’s leading Kiwi onion dip researcher, delivers the company an angry rebuke. In 2012, 81-year-old Cecilia Giménez started painting over a fresco of a scourged Christ in the Spanish city of Borja. In her mind, the creation by artist García Martínez … Read more
Holly Walker shelled out big bucks to see The Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood being interviewed by Kim Hill in Wellington on Monday. After a prickly 90 minutes of questioning, she left wondering what Atwood gets out of her seemingly endless live appearances. We filled the lobby of the Michael Fowler Centre. We wore jumpsuits. … Read more
After a bite of schnitzel sends her running to the toilet, Julie Hill dives into the murky world of Britain’s favourite meat substitute. It was late in the evening and my stomach was empty. I was on my way home after a slightly depressing trip to the hospital, hungry but too weary to cook from … Read more
Our health system is broken. It has betrayed its community rather than served it. And the solution lies with the voices of patients, writes Glenn Colquhoun, a New Zealand poet and doctor based on the Kāpiti coast. When Māui first hauled up the North Island of New Zealand it was smooth. His brothers sat beside … Read more
Sky’s new CEO hasn’t yet been in his job for a year, but has already achieved more than his predecessor did in a decade. Duncan Greive sits down with Martin Stewart to find out whether it has changed Sky’s fate. When Martin Stewart arrived at Sky a year ago this month, he found the corporate … Read more
JP Pomare is a Kiwi living in Melbourne, and a stingingly great writer. His new thriller In the Clearing is set in the Australian bush, with fire forever licking the horizon. We asked him to tell us about the view from over there. 1 Notes on burning When my family read my new novel In The … Read more
Sam Brooks makes the case for raising your kids on the exquisite Japanese anime films, which have just landed on Netflix. A girl waits at a bus stop in the rain, barely fitting herself and her little sister under an umbrella. Next to her sits a large creature halfway between a bear and beachball. He … Read more
In the near decade since Sawmill Brewery’s new owners came on board, they’ve made some of the best beers in the country, won awards and watched their brewery burn down. And their former landlords at the Leigh Sawmill Cafe accuse them of acting unethically. Alice Neville reports from Matakana. Every Monday, when the Sawmill Brewery’s … Read more
This content was created in paid partnership with the Child Poverty Action Group. Learn more about our partnerships here.
A parenting expert has warned mothers against ‘brexting’ or using their phones while breastfeeding. Renee Liang, a paediatrician, poet and mother, responds. First there was Brangelina, then Brexit and Megxit. And now, apparently, there’s Brexting. Brexting, the Herald on Sunday solemnly informed us, is the unpardonable sin of texting while breastfeeding. Don’t click – I’ll … Read more
Summer holidays got you dreaming of a happier, easier, gentler life in the provinces? Amanda Thompson actually made the move, and has some real talk on what to expect. God I love Auckland. Sorry Wellington, hope we can stay friends – but my heart is a Jaffa flavoured Jaffa cake filled with Jaffas and topped … Read more
Scarlett Cayford stumbles, ravenous, into a glorious new world. I go through phases with my reading, like any bibliophile. Sometimes my life can barely keep pace with my reading, and I find myself wedging pages of books into my calendar wherever I can: in waiting rooms and on bus seats and in the first five … Read more
How does MMP work – and how can you make the most of your two ticks? Danyl Mclauchlan has your crucial election year primer. It’s an election year in New Zealand. Again. Our political calendar always starts with a sequence of set pieces, and these intensify going into a campaign year, starting with Ratana. After … Read more
When it comes to emerging infectious diseases and outbreaks, so much can happen in a week. In the case of the coronavirus outbreak in China, I’ve gone from not being too alarmed, to thinking, oh, crap! But that still doesn’t mean we should all panic, writes Siouxsie Wiles. The likelihood of a case of the … Read more