An open letter to prime minister Jacinda Ardern, minister of foreign affairs Nanaia Mahuta and trade minister Damien O’Connor on supporting a People’s Vaccine Dear Prime Minister Ardern and Ministers Mahuta and O’Connor, The world has watched Aotearoa New Zealand’s remarkable response to Covid-19. Our leaders struck a different path from many other countries, one … Read more
Women and non-binary people in the music industry have spoken out about how cis-gendered men can make their jobs safer. Content warning: sexual assault, harassment and discrimination. *Some names have been changed. Yesterday an open letter penned by musician Anna Coddington (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Arawa) was made public amid the fallout of Alison Mau’s exposé for … Read more
How Waiwera Hot Pools went from New Zealand’s most visited water park to dereliction and decay. Many who grew up in Auckland likely have fond memories of Waiwera Hot Pools. Like me, they remember summer days spent racing down the slides and playing in the naturally hot pools. But how did this small town just … Read more
We are drowning out the natural world with synthetic sounds, and it’s getting worse, writes Michelle Langstone. It used to be quiet once. Remember that? Remember the hush that settled over the cities like the silence that comes down in a snowstorm? It’s less than a year since Aotearoa first locked down, and the unexpected … Read more
Right now, our most fiery national debate is over whether New Zealanders were nice to the singer Amanda Palmer in a cafe. Desperate to restore peace in our nation, Hayden Donnell went in search of the truth. Joe Biden had barely finished calling for unity when Amanda Palmer posted a tweet that split New Zealand … Read more
This commendable and realistic decision again underlines that it is the police, not government, who are largely responsible for the reduction in cannabis prosecutions over the past 15 years, writes Russell Brown. The news that New Zealand police have discontinued the annual Helicopter Recovery Operation, which has, each summer for more than two decades, teamed … Read more
Varieties of merino wool footwear are emerging faster than Netflix series about British aristocracy. Michael Andrew takes a look at the rise of the shoe that almost everyone – including his 95-year-old grandma – is wearing. Some might say it all started with Allbirds. After all, to the average consumer, it was the New Zealand-American … Read more
Danyl McLauchlan reviews Stuart Ritchie’s Science Fictions, which outlines the staggering systemic flaws in the funding and publication of scientific papers. Back in August of 2006 a number of New Zealand scientists were caught up in a media controversy about whether Māori had a genetic predisposition towards violent crime. It kicked off when an epidemiologist … Read more
Why are New Zealand’s 2 Minute Noodles called 3 Minute Noodles in the UK? It’s a puzzle that has taken hold of Dylan Reeve and refuses to let go. I’m a child of the 80s and 90s. I watched a lot of TV and was a big fan of aggressively marketed brand name food and … Read more
The experience in the Brazilian city of Manaus reveals how mistaken, and dangerous, the herd-immunity-by-infection theory really is. As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop focusing on our managed … Read more
The current number of members of parliament is starting to get too low for the job we expect them to do, argues Alex Braae. As a general rule, with the possible exception of their families, nobody likes backbench MPs. But it’s nevertheless time we accepted that parliament should have more of them. There’s no exact … Read more
A Pūhoi pub is refusing to remove a piece of memorabilia bearing the n-word from its walls. Dr Lachy Paterson looks at the history of the word here, and New Zealand’s complicity in Britain’s shameful slave trading past. Content warning: This article contains racist language and images. On a pub wall in Pūhoi, covered in … Read more
You’re born either a cheery soul or a gloomy one, reckons Linda Burgess – but what happens when gene pools from opposite ends of the spectrum collide? In our shoeboxes of photos that we have to sort out before we die or get demented – because who IS that kid on the plane, or that … Read more
Hardly anyone is using their Covid Tracer app. Something needs to change. As the mercury approaches 30°C in Aotearoa, there is a good deal of slipping and slopping, but, let’s face it, piss-all scanning. As few as around 500,000 QR codes are being scanned by users of the NZ Covid Tracer app daily in January, … Read more
Amanda Thompson and her family are attempting to cut back on the meat, so they gave all the vego sausies the local supermarket had to offer a hoon on the barbie. Here are the results. I was a vegetarian once. Even the best of us take a well-meaning wrong turn on the tangled highways and … Read more
If you’ve been on social media this week, you may well have come across a surge in interest in sea shanties. We asked a veteran of the style why. In case you missed it, soon may the Wellerman come, to bring us sugar and tea and rum. If that sentence is even remotely comprehensible to … Read more
The new variants of the virus can spread like wildfire, and all of us have a role to play in keeping them out of the community. I have to admit, when I first heard UK prime minister Boris Johnson talking about a new, more transmissible strain of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for Covid-19, part of … Read more
From aggressive squirrels to the return of SATC, the start of the year has presented clear evidence that the end is nigh, says Emily Writes. Happy New Year! I think we’re all going to die! The first days of 2021 have shown that those who said “2021 will be better” in a fit of desperate … Read more
Summer reissue: Being in the midst of a global pandemic does funny things to you, finds Michelle Langstone as she gives in to an overwhelming urge to return to the Auckland amusement park of her youth. First published September 22, 2020. I don’t know if it’s nostalgia working, but my husband and I had an … Read more
Summer reissue: To see someone like us – a band geek, a joyful dancer, a plus size beauty – being unapologetically who she is, is powerful. Applying that to your own life for the better is precious. And then she gives you a shout-out on the radio? Beautiful. First published January 20, 2020. Last week … Read more
Summer reissue: Kind-of vegetarian Alex Casey brings you the only meat-free fast food burger ranking you’ll ever need. First published October 31 2020 At the start of the year, several centuries ago, I went vegetarian. Kind of. As a coward with commitment issues, I decided to enter into a dietary Yes Man situation, where I … Read more
Summer reissue: Turns out that a lot of people are very mad at a lot of our iconic tourist attractions. First published on January 9, 2020. This summer will go down in history as the first time that I stood in the shadow of the mighty L&P bottle in Paeroa. The rumours are true – … Read more
Summer reissue: After hitting a career-low in recent years, New Zealand’s most successful rally driver ever is ready to once again take on the world. He talks to George Driver from his Cromwell garage about reaching WRC success against all odds, the trauma and disappointment of the last few years, and his plans to build … Read more
Summer reissue: The 1954 novel The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a story about young boys shipwrecked on a desolate island, is a parable for the supposedly innate cruelty and selfishness of human nature. In May 2020, an excerpt was published on The Guardian from the book Humankind by Dutch historian Rutger Bregman, … Read more
Summer reissue: Esther Ng is the most successful New Zealand designer you’ve never heard of. Her label, Prix, has been seen on celebrities like Ariana Grande and Kylie Jenner, she has over 150,000 Instagram followers and she’s currently working from her bedroom. First published September 20 2020. Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay … Read more
With the help of her faithful four-legged assistant, Jean Teng disregards commonsense and ‘only for pet consumption’ labelling to review dog food fit for a king (or at least a cavalier king charles spaniel). First published June 2, 2020 Three months ago, I was reviewing fine-dining restaurant The Grove. Today, I’m reviewing vacuum-sealed frozen dog … Read more
Summer reissue: The story of how a leisurely bike ride around Hawke’s Bay turned into a one-man rampage against perceived corporate privilege. First published October 24 2020 In the early hours of October 10, in a motel in Napier South, Ian Swney, 62, was struggling to sleep. A semi-retired kindergarten teacher, he’d travelled to Napier … Read more
Summer reissue: Spinoff cartoonist Toby Morris travels to Waitomo to see first hand the impact of Covid-19 on one of New Zealand’s oldest tourist destinations. First published 8 June, 2020. Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its members – click here to learn more … Read more
Summer reissue: There are many lessons climate scientists can learn from mātauranga Māori. Lesson one is: don’t panic. This story was made with support from the Science Journalism Fund and was first published 29 December, 2019. Hank Dunn (Te Uri o Tai, Te Rarawa) has survived five shipwrecks in his lifetime. He told me this … Read more