The Bulletin: Australia welcomes talk of a travel bubble

Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Australia welcomes travel bubble talk, no new public info about Ihumātao, and speaker Mallard proactively arranges meeting with select committee.  There’s still some water to go under the air bridge, but a trans-Tasman travel bubble could become a reality early next year. At her post-cabinet press … Read more

The Bulletin: Mallard under pressure over legal costs

Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Trevor Mallard under pressure over legal costs, questions over why border testing review is still under wraps, and Massey academics speak out against cuts. Speaker Trevor Mallard is under pressure over the costs of paying out to end a defamation dispute. In the wake of the … Read more

The Bulletin: Spy agency overhaul calls, and response to March 15 inquiry report

Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Response to Royal Commission report into March 15 terrorist attack, slow progress on climate change criticised internationally, and ‘digital handshake’ to be added to Covid app. The security services have come in for criticism in a Royal Commission report into the March 15 terrorist attacks, … Read more

The Bulletin: Parliament returns as petty as ever

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

The Bulletin: Big reveal coming on infrastructure project spending

Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Announcements expected on infrastructure projects, Kiwis trapped in Wuhan speak out, and speaker Trevor Mallard being sued. Major announcements will be made on infrastructure spending today. It’s part of a $12 billion package announced last year, but with the details kept under wraps until now. However, … Read more

Hell yes it’s time for more pictures of New Zealand politicians’ dogs

Inspired by Winston Peters’ dog and muse, Beau, a range of other dogs have urged their politician owners to get them in the Spinoff gallery. Drool away. For the second time in a week, The Spinoff is bringing together New Zealand’s politician and dog communities in celebration. On Tuesday we published the epochal, soft-hitting, smash … Read more

Eight extremely topical and uniquely New Zealand Halloween costumes

Don’t have your costume sorted yet? Fear not: Halloween and bizarre news story enthusiasts Alice Neville and Toby Morris bring you eight ideas guaranteed to impress and terrify the neighbours in equal measure.  It’s a little-known fact that the Halloween costume was invented in a small Scottish village in 1585, when local children dressed up … Read more

The Bulletin: Is NZ First already in election mode?

Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Shane Jones says the quiet bit out loud to forestry industry, massive marches take place against climate inaction, and pharmacists fear Chemist Warehouse wipeout. Cabinet minister and NZ First MP Shane Jones has allegedly been caught saying the quiet bit out loud again. The NZ Herald’s David Fisher … Read more

Why political attack ads will have to stop using footage from parliament

Speaker Trevor Mallard has announced a crackdown on parties using footage of their opponents in parliament for attack ads. What’s this all about? Electoral law expert Andrew Geddis explains.  As the House was kicking off its business yesterday, Speaker Trevor Mallard opened things up by announcing a ruling on Standing Orders. A Labour Party MP … Read more

A survivor’s guide to detoxifying the New Zealand parliament

First the Francis Review revealed the scale of harassment and bullying within parliament. Then the Speaker, Trevor Mallard, said he believed a repeat rapist remained working there. If there’s to be culture change, writes former MP Catherine Delahunty, perhaps it should be driven by those with meaningful experience After reading about the bullying and harassment … Read more

Trevor Mallard and Nick Smith are at it again. But this time is the speaker biased?

As speaker, Trevor Mallard took the exception of ‘naming’ the National MP Nick Smith. It’s just the latest salvo exchanged by the veteran pair. The more important question, however, is whether the accusations of bias hold up On Wednesday last week Judith Collins made good on her word and produced a delicious looking plate of … Read more

Unchained Mallardry, MAGA Barry, ILG damned and the stars of 2018

In the last politics podcast of the year, Annabelle Lee, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire rub their weary eyes and stick out their stockings. Trevor Mallard has hogged headlines in recent days: first after his commissioning of an inquiry into bullying and harassment at parliament and then over allegations of bias from Simon Bridges. We … Read more

The Bulletin: Pride Board narrowly survives no-confidence vote

Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Auckland Pride board survives no confidence vote, Defence Force puts climate change in its sights, and two former parliament speakers weigh in on bias claims against Trevor Mallard. The Auckland Pride Board have survived a vote of no confidence brought by disgruntled members over the uniformed … Read more

Why is it a ‘contempt’ for an MP (or a journalist) to call Trevor Mallard biased?

Accusing parliament’s Speaker of behaving in a biased fashion undermines the necessary authority of the office, and even the comments by the Herald political editor likely could be punished as a contempt, if parliament wished to, writes Andrew Geddis for RNZ Wednesday’s flare-up in parliament, which saw the Speaker ordering both National’s leader and leader … Read more

The Bulletin: Pandora’s box of Parliamentary bullying

Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Fallout begins immediately from review into parliamentary bullying, a phenomenal piece of mental health journalism featured, and National’s polling bounces back. Has Trevor Mallard opened the door on something that will get out of control? We talked a bit about this last week, but things have moved … Read more

The Bridges leak inquiry is a huge deal, for the leaker and for the press

The stakes are high after Trevor Mallard’s announcement of an inquiry into how the opposition leader’s travel costs became public, writes Jane Patterson for RNZ If a National Party MP is named as the source of the leak of Simon Bridges’ travel bill their political career will come to an abrupt end. If it is found … Read more

What does the parliamentary speaker do, and why is he under fire?

The role of the speaker and the schoolyard scrap of Question Time are in the news as Paula Bennett and Gerry Brownlee square up against Trevor Mallard. What’s it all about? Chris Bramwell of RNZ explains  From the outside, Parliamentary Question Time probably looks like a scrappy playground at times. Sometimes dubbed the “snakepit”, parliament’s debating … Read more

How the Bennett vs Mallard standoff exposes a paradox at the heart of politics

The scrap between the National Party opposition and the Labour MP speaker is an example of the Nash Equilibrium, and it leaves Danyl Mclauclan reflecting on a deeper sorrow and madness National deputy leader Paula Bennett is unhappy with the Speaker’s rulings during Question Time. This is not an important issue and you don’t actually need … Read more