Here’s what you need to know about new National leader Todd Muller

The National Party caucus has come to a decision and Simon Bridges is finally no longer leader. So who is this Muller chap it’s got in to replace him? You’d be forgiven for not being able to pick Todd Muller out from a lineup. Much like approximately half of the National Party caucus, its new … Read more

A sincere appreciation of The Hunger Games

Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is released internationally today. Books editor Catherine Woulfe is all in.  The Hunger Games is 12 years old. Much of the hype and silliness that originally surrounded the series has faded, leaving a story that feels more grown-up, more permanent. It reads so much better now. … Read more

How 5G and Covid-19 mixed to make a toxic conspiracy cocktail

David Farrier looks at the way two conspiracy theories have merged into something very nasty online and into real world violence. Over the weekend we saw another suspicious fire at a cellphone tower, this time in South Auckland. This comes off the back of a string of arson attacks over the last six weeks: 10 … Read more

Review: TV adaptation of The Luminaries has both the glitter and the gold

The Man Booker prize-winning novel makes its way to our screens courtesy of BBC and TVNZ, but does it make the transition unscathed? Linda Burgess reviews. Oh god, wild seas. A sailing ship – ah, so it’s the olden days – all creaking wood tossed on those heaving seas, the moon a ghostly galleon, with … Read more

The real Tongan boys of ‘Ata were not the real Lord of the Flies

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. This week, an excerpt was published on The Guardian from the book Humankind by Dutch historian Rutger Bregman, who claimed to … Read more

Siouxsie Wiles & Toby Morris: Simple rules to play it safe at alert level two

Siouxsie explains the state of Covid-19 in New Zealand, the risks we face in alert level two, and some simple ways we can keep safe. The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 crisis is made possible thanks to the support of members. If you can, please consider joining Spinoff Members here (and score a Toby Morris … Read more

The tourism crisis as seen from Clyde, the tiny town in the Central Otago mountains

After moving back home to Clyde in Central Otago for the Covid-19 lockdown, George Driver wonders how the tiny town on the edge of Queenstown’s tourism boom and bust will survive. Growing up, Clyde always felt like a quiet backwater. Cut off from the main road and in the shadow of the 100m concrete wall … Read more

The epic story of NZ’s communications-led fight against Covid-19

Jacinda Ardern, Ashley Bloomfield and thousands of anonymous comms workers just accomplished what we all would have thought impossible just weeks ago. Duncan Greive looks back at the historic lockdown, and how it was achieved. It came in the early evening of Wednesday March 25 – an angry, violent buzzing, all around the nation. The … Read more

Apiecalypse now: The baker battling lockdown bleakness with pastry

We’ve all been dealing with Covid-19 confinement in different ways, but Devoney Scarfe’s preferred medium is pies. Expletive-laden, delicious pies. Devoney Scarfe had had enough. She was locked down in suburban Auckland, with a husband, two kids and the dog. “Nobody was at their finest. There was a tantrum thrown because PlayStation didn’t work. Everyone … Read more

Punakaiki: What the Covid-19 crisis means for a small West Coast tourist town

In a small community on a remote stretch of the West Coast, tourism operators contemplate a town without tourists. Halfway between Westport and Greymouth, Punakaiki usually heaves with rental cars, campers and buses during the summer. More than 400,000 people visit the unique geological formations known as the pancake rocks every year, according to a … Read more

Fast-food shaming is not about backing your local, it’s about being an asshole

If you’re the type to judge those who queued up for a post-lockdown Big Mac, perhaps it’s time to ask yourself some hard questions about why you really disapprove so much. Since we moved to alert level three, there has been a flurry of attention on fast food – namely that after five weeks of … Read more

The Side Eye: Essential

Two years ago, Toby Morris met Tasia for the Side Eye comic ‘Empty Shelves’. As New Zealand emerges from the strict Covid-19 lockdown of alert level four he catches up with her again, and finds that while some things have changed, others have not. The Side Eye is a monthly non-fiction comic by Toby Morris, … Read more

State of Undress: The perilous post-lockdown future of New Zealand fashion

While the pandemic will have a deadly effect on the local industry, New Zealand fashion was already in a fragile state before the coronavirus hit, writes former FQ editor Zoe Walker Ahwa. Most days at 1pm, like everyone else trying to find some semblance of structure in their life right now, I watch the government … Read more

The winners and losers of NZ’s post-lockdown economy (and how the losers might win too)

The weight of Covid-19 will be very unequally distributed. Duncan Greive writes about where it will land, and how those it hits might come out from under it. This is the second of a two part series – read the first here There’s a graph I keep thinking about which shows the potential strangeness of … Read more

Siouxsie Wiles & Toby Morris: Why getting tested quickly matters so much

Even after weeks of lockdown, people are still testing positive. Here’s why that is – and why getting tested swiftly if you have symptoms is really important. The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 crisis is only possible because of the support of members. If you can, please consider joining Spinoff Members here (and score a Toby … Read more

What you can and can’t do in Covid-19 alert level three: 60 questions, answered

The lockdown shackles loosen as we move from alert level four. What changes under alert level three? Jacinda Ardern has called it a “recovery room”, and “a progression, not a rush to normality”. The goal of shifting down a notch through the alert level system is to keep enough of a thumb over the hose … Read more

My daughter, on the other side of the screen

Separated from her nine year old daughter in Hungary, Daisy Coles is finding solace in video calling – and Disney gifs. Two months after I last saw her, I’m still finding my daughter’s drawings around the house. Precise line drawings of squirrels, lions, foxes in her signature style: thoughtfully considered, executed with an exquisitely sharp … Read more

All 142 biscuit flavours in New Zealand ranked from worst to best

We fought when she ranked the chips. We bickered when she ranked the lollies. And now, Madeleine Chapman returns to bring the nation together as one, with this, her longest list yet, an unimpeachable ranking of the biscuits. In a world without restaurants, cafes and bakeries, all that remains for supper is biscuits. And oh so … Read more

Good news, bad omens: Thinking about New Zealand identity in strange times

‘I feel like it means something to be a New Zealander in these circumstances, that it means something that we’re all trapped here together, self-isolating at the end of the world.’ On the third Saturday of the lockdown we saw the naked bus driver. We were standing by the road chatting to our neighbour, observing … Read more

Siouxsie Wiles & Toby Morris: What do we mean when we talk about the ‘elimination’ of Covid-19?

New Zealand is pursuing an ‘elimination’ strategy to counter the coronavirus pandemic. But that word, as with many terms in science, is not necessarily the same as its common usage. Here in Aotearoa New Zealand, our plan is to eliminate Covid-19. We have long since abandoned the “flatten the curve” strategy, which aims to slow … Read more

Siouxsie Wiles: What we know about children and Covid-19

A lot of people are very reasonably concerned about the implications of schools and early childhood education reopening. Siouxsie Wiles explains what the latest studies can tell us about the risks. When Aotearoa New Zealand heads to alert level three, schools and early child education centres will be opening again. They will only be available … Read more

In the absence of noise, I hear things

Without the sounds of the day-to-day competing for attention, Scotty Stevenson has taken some time over the past four weeks to listen. I heard my father talking tonight. He’s been dead seven years. His voice was deep, filled with an understated enthusiasm, imbued with eternal encouragement, just as I remembered it. I heard it while … Read more

The highs, the lows and the WTFs of One World: Together At Home

What if that ‘Imagine’ video was nearly nine hours long and featured over a hundred celebrities? Is it a global crisis until a group of celebrities come together and sing about it? Surely not. Thus today’s Global Citizen’s One World Together: Stay Home, a nearly nine-hour live stream – seven hours of pre-show followed by … Read more

Are you ready for radical change? Really?

For all its petitions and protests, the left is too invested in its own privilege to upend ‘hypercapitalism’, Thomas Piketty argues in his latest book Capital and Ideology – so it’s time to conjure something new.  It is a very long book. I started it some time in late December when the electoral defeat of … Read more

Siouxsie Wiles & Toby Morris: Why contact tracing is so crucial to moving out of lockdown

As we await a decision on moving out of alert level four, some big questions are in play. One of those is about contact tracing, explains Siouxsie Wiles. Illustrations and animations by Toby Morris.  This work is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Help us to continue this work by joining here. On Monday, the … Read more