David Seymour rode to the rescue of publicans and pub-loving rugby fans a couple of months back when he introduced a bill enabling licensed premises to open for World Cup screenings in the early, very early and very, very early morning. Toby Manhire catches up with the one-man ACT caucus over breakfast, beer and All … Read more
At something like 5am in the Coca-Cola city, the deal was done. The nations’ representatives had presumably been reduced to 12 hangry men – or, more precisely, 11 men and one woman – and after more than five years of negotiation, squabbling and secrecy, a Partenariat Transpacifique, as they like to call it on the … Read more
Earlier today the New Zealand prime minister delivered his address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Here’s the whole thingamy: It was fairly brief, as far as these sorts of things go, but we know how busy you are, so we’ve boiled it down to a snackable 100 words: Mr President. The … Read more
The month is up, and the Spinoff Politics power rankings are in. Organised arbitrarily into five gaining power and five going the other way, the completely scientific cookie crumbles like this… UPWARD 1. James Shaw / Gareth Hughes After a positive and non-partisan campaign for the Red Peak flag to be added to the plainly … Read more
Unpicking the meaning in a picture of the prime minister standing in reasonably close proximity with Potus. The New Zealand prime minister, John Key, is in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, or the “UNGA games” as the event is probably not known. He had hoped to catch a moment with the US … Read more
From the legalistic urges of Colin Craig to Dirty Politics to the Kim Dotcom Town Hall spectacular, the unstoppable weirdness of the 2014 New Zealand general election was best encapsulated by the hashtag #PeakCray. In this chapter from the new collection Moments of Truth: The New Zealand General Election of 2014, Nicola Kean recounts the … Read more
Unnamed sources linked to the notorious Piers Gaveston Society and Edward Snowden have exclusively revealed to The Spinoff Politics clues to the process by which the Government will select a new animal to take up residence at Wellington Zoo. An independent expert panel will be appointed to consider a wide range of suitable animals for … Read more
As I write it is 3am over there, and only recently has British Twitter’s bewilderment begun to subside. Bewilderment, specifically, at the jawdropping allegations that David Cameron – you know the guy, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom – once placed his penis in the mouth of a dead pig. The claim, based on … Read more
After watching CNN’s three hour, 11 candidate Republican debate yesterday, Duncan Greive assesses the general vibe of each candidate, with help from Alex Casey on speech bubbles Rand Paul: Guy who woke up in his car – again. Mike Huckabee: Crew member in charge of laughing at leader’s jokes / Will dance for VP selection Marco … Read more
It all began with an execrable rendition of The Star Spangled Banner and went downhill from there. On and on it went, did CNN’s “three-hour debate from hell”, like some weird Ancient Greek endurance event, conducted before the mad backdrop of an old Air Force One airliner that the saintly Ronald Reagan used to get … Read more
Already I’ve banged on (and on) enough about Red Peak, so I’ll be very brief. There is broad parliamentary consensus that popular enthusiasm for the Aaron Dustin designed flag means it warrants a place on the shortlist. Labour agree, the Greens agree, so does the Maori Party and ACT. And National, too. John Key said … Read more
This story was published in September 2015 “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. This is a refrain we should keep in mind wherever we can, because a little knowledge is not enough to know just how dangerous we can be. It’s for this reason that I find the subject of online voting so troubling. … Read more
New Zealand gets off to a flyer at the Parliamentary World Cup. Scotty Stevenson says surely this needs to be a bigger deal, and imagines how the first week might have gone. It was perhaps the most dominant opening win of the World Cup yet the the four-time world champion New Zealand Parliamentary Rugby Team’s … Read more
Leftwing outsider Jeremy Corbyn has stormed to an emphatic victory in the British Labour leadership race. An all-star cast of politicians and commentators assess the impact for the Spinoff. Britain’s Labour Party has swung dramatically away from Blairism and elected veteran backbench leftwing MP Jeremy Corbyn its new leader, with an astonishing 59.5% of support in … Read more
Last week TradeMe co-founder Rowan Simpson wrote a blog post explaining why he’d like to see the Red Peak flag on the official shortlist. To his surprise, his piece, and designer Aaron Dustin’s explanation of the flag’s story, captured the imagination of thousands. Here he writes a follow-up letter to Prime Minister John Key. Dear … Read more
Economics and politics can be hard, so to make it easier for us to get the hang of things, our elected representatives oftentimes turn to metaphor. Here is a selection of examples from this year, drawn from Hansard, the official record of parliamentary debate. Bill English, National, 22 July 2015: “The fact is that if … Read more
Arbitrarily split into five political players whose power is growing and five going the other way, these rankings will become a monthly event. For the purposes of this glittering premiere, however, the month of August will be considered to run from August 1 through to September 10. All complaints should be directed to your local … Read more
Former Metro digital editor Catherine McGregor recently moved to New York. Naturally, her first priority was obtaining a television, so she could watch the first Republican debate on Fox News. On my local public radio station, morning call-in listeners described how they were planning to watch the show. Comparisons were made to stand-up comedy, WWE, and the audition rounds … Read more
In a time before she donned a sparkly dress and mom-danced (as my flatmate put it) on free-to-air television, before she called one journalist a “puffed up little shit” and another Cameron Slater’s “glove puppet”, our dearly beloved Pam Corkery was once an MP. For three years, she occupied a seat in our hallowed halls … Read more