In an interview with the editor of the Indian Weekender, Sandeep Singh, the prime minister has her harshest words yet for Shane Jones over his comments about Indian students. Below, the interview in full. See also: NZ Indian community leaders respond to Jacinda Ardern. Sandeep Singh: One of the most pressing issues that our community is … Read more
Ben Thomas, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Toby Manhire are not medical doctors or, in fact, doctors of any kind, but here they overcome this minor impediment and solve coronavirus. The Gone By Lunchtime trio look at the political and economic implications of the outbreak, weigh up Jacinda Ardern’s “don’t deport your problems” broadside at Scott Morrison … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Warnings about waterways in mass eel deaths, government funding approved for Christchurch stadium, and two Covid-19 tests come back negative. Frankly, this is one of the most visually horrifying environmental stories I’ve ever seen. Farah Hancock at Newsroom has looked at the extreme pressure being put on waterways … Read more
At a tense press conference in Sydney, the New Zealand prime minister has just issued a stark challenge to Australia over its treatment of NZ citizens. Here’s what she said. We appreciate that many Kiwis have taken up the opportunity to live and work in Australia – many more than has happened in reverse. Not … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Ardern gets diplomatic, fuel market legislation released, and police pinged over employment records breach. There hasn’t really been much coverage of it in The Bulletin, but it’s worth looking back at quite an important diplomatic week for the PM. She has been in Fiji for several … Read more
A new index ranking ‘soft power’ praises ‘a shining example of how to build a tolerant and inclusive society in the face of adversity’ – and offers a rejoinder to sneers at the prime minister’s appearances in international media, writes Toby Manhire. At the end of last week of Jacinda Ardern appeared on the cover … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: New child poverty statistics show little change yet, Greenpeace call for fishing policy review over donations, and a focus on Covid-19 effects on forestry. New figures were released yesterday on one of the most important issues facing the country – how many children grow up in … Read more
In today’s edition: Coronavirus’ harsh impact on New Zealand’s economy starts to reveal itself; Bridges advocates matching Australia’s deportation policies and the Shelly Bay dispute ratchets up. As major outbreaks were confirmed in Iran and Italy, the impact of Coronavirus on New Zealand’s economy started to become more clear, with the NZX50 dropping nearly 2% … 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
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Creative accounting around the ETS explored, Ardern goes to ground on Peters, and ACT criticised for keeping donation from extremist. Often when reporting on technical and thorny pieces of legislation, it helps to have a specialist reporter looking into it. Stuff’s Charlie Mitchell has come out with … Read more
Across the prime minister’s Monday morning broadcast interviews, there was one overwhelming theme: the behaviour of NZ First and Winston Peters, who happens also to be the deputy prime minister. With turmoil engulfing government coalition partner NZ First and deputy PM Winston Peters, the logical next person to ask for a view was Jacinda Ardern. … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Parliament is back for another fraught year, bad weather news likely to continue, and Winston Peters goes live. After taking a day to mark the life of former PM Mike Moore, Parliament began in earnest yesterday. As is customary, the party leaders each start the year … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Coronavirus fears loom over OCR announcement, Salvation Army release annual SOTN report, and the PM does actually trust her deputy PM. Will the coronavirus have an effect on the Reserve Bank’s interest rates announcement today? There’s been a fair bit of speculation in the past week … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: NZ First Foundation referred to police, major campaign launched to close measles immunity gap, and emissions forecast rises again. The story around donations to the NZ First Foundation has become a lot more serious, and both the police and Serious Fraud Office will be involved. It … Read more
The Serious Fraud Office will investigate donations relating to NZ First and the NZ First Foundation. It sets a tone for election year, and the spotlight on her deputy prime minister is the stuff of nightmares for Jacinda Ardern. The course of election year in Aotearoa never did run smooth. And so it is in … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: New poll sets scene for election year, scale of public support for Weta Group revealed, and Phil Goff’s emails for sale. Each poll is just one snapshot, but this particular one is very interesting. The Newshub Reid Research poll has Labour and the Greens with a collective two-seat … Read more
The New Zealand arts community is reported to be furious with the government about its treatment. Isn’t it always, writes Ben Thomas. In his story on the mooted changes to RNZ’s music delivery, Toby Manhire yesterday noted that “it’s fair to say that the arts and culture community in New Zealand is on the whole … Read more
On this day two years ago, Jacinda Ardern delivered a powerful, acclaimed speech at Waitangi. She implored her audience then, as she has again in recent days, to hold her to account on delivering for Te Ao Māori. We’ve taken that speech and held it up against the Labour-led government’s achievements to date. In February … Read more
The political pilgrimage north is under way ahead of the commemoration of the signing of te tiriti. RNZ’s Jo Moir surveys the calm before the storm. Thousands of people from around the country will begin the annual pilgrimage to Waitangi on Sunday, and the sleepy snippet of the Bay of Islands will transform once again. … Read more
The man who led the All Blacks to victory in the first World Cup went on to become a Rhodes scholar, political operator and business leader. Today he’s worried about tribalism and the Trumpian tendency to vilification. He sits down with Spinoff business editor Maria Slade in Sydney. Rugby legend, Rhodes scholar, business leader and … Read more
As the Labour caucus gathers for its annual retreat in the Wairarapa, Toby Manhire asks what might be on the agenda. Labour MPs are meeting today in Martinborough for their now traditional January dress-down gear-up for the political year. The Brackenridge resort, just off the road to Lake Ferry, has in recent years seen the … Read more
We’re half a month into the year, and the political wheels are just beginning to turn. To celebrate, Brigitte Morton proffers some resolutions for the leaders of the two big parties. Like most people, for me the reality of the New Year and those shiny resolutions are starting to wear off. Sure, I brought a … Read more
Jacinda Ardern has been in Australia at a time when the country is being rocked by devastating bushfires. So what did the Aussies have to say about her visit? It couldn’t have been timed any better. Jacinda Ardern announced she was going on holiday to Australia last year, but when she touched down, the situation … Read more
Authenticity matters more than anything, writes Rosemary Williamson of the University of New England, an expert on leaders’ differing responses to catastrophic events. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been harshly criticised for being on holiday in Hawaii as the catastrophic bushfires were burning Australia. Since his return, he has visited stricken communities – most recently, … Read more
Toby Manhire undertakes a very possibly foolish attempt to whittle down the dates to the likeliest polling day, based on All Blacks, Trump, school holidays and the vibe. I feared I might have missed something when on Sunday a newspaper preview of the year noted “the general election in November”. That same day, in another … Read more
In the latest from our pop-up podcast, The Spinoff Book Out Loud, Toby Manhire revisits the days of Jacindamania. Listen to episode one, Madeleine Chapman on life after those chip rankings, here, episode two, Alex Braae on Extinction Rebellion, here, and Alex Casey on Sensing Murder, here. It’s election year in New Zealand, so what better time … Read more
On Friday 15 March, a terrorist attack in Christchurch took the lives of 50 people at prayer. Eighteen months into her first term as prime minister, Jacinda Ardern faced a formidable task: communicate what happened, embrace a ruptured community, and force through real reform. Madeleine Chapman reports. This was first published 22 March, 2019. The … Read more
Summer reissue: The candidates to tackle Donald Trump are very keen on the New Zealand prime minister. This post was first published 12 November, 2019. It could be because Vogue called her “the anti-Trump”. It could be the desperate shortage of tolerable left-leaning leaders in the Anglosphere. Or it could be because everyone knows it’s … Read more
Former Labour volunteers say they’re left feeling ‘shattered’ following the report, which substantially finds the allegations, including sexual assault, are ‘not established’, and finds that evidence presented by a key complainant was unreliable. Note: Representatives of the respondent have contacted The Spinoff reiterating that he adamantly rejects any allegations of sexual assault, and noting that … Read more