All the reasons to grow flowers
No, the "pursuit of beauty" alone isn't enough
Kia ora and welcome to The Weekend brought to you by Coffee Supreme. Happy long weekend to those who have Monday off (which isn’t everyone). If you’re a Labour MP making the difficult transition from government to opposition, then maybe having three days off is a good opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the past. In fact, Spinoff editor-at-large Toby Manhire has some recommendations: Lloyd Burr’s The Wilderness podcast and Andrea Vance’s Blue Blood book. There are lessons to any political party hoping not to fall apart, like to not panic, take deep breaths and be realistic. That’s actually pretty good advice to most people — I personally am going to be using the long weekend for my multitude of craft projects and I’m keen to be realistic about my skills and not panic about my mistakes. Better living to us all!
-Shanti Mathias, staff writer
What is the point of flowers?
Three people have given me sunflower seeds in the last few weeks, and I’ve been reluctant to plant them. I was chatting to staff writer Gabi Lardies about her excellent gardening column and mentioned this and she’s now written a whole piece about it (which is very gratifying to me personally"). First off, Gabi tells me, sunflowers are great: they’ve been used in Palestine to extract heavy metals from the ground “as well as being pretty and bringing hope and joy.” Gabi has a packet of sunflower seeds and lots of wildflowers in her garden, and she’s discovered that there are lots of reasons to grow flowers — to attract bees, as an addition to food and more. “And for the pursuit of beauty — that’s important too,” Gabi says.
A blend of several excellent Brazils, roasted medium-dark to give a sweet, milk chocolate cup, a smooth silky body and a long finish. Grab a bag.
What will happen to Labour’s legacy?
Henry Cooke dives deep into the projects Labour did achieve in government, and how many of them may be removed by a National-led government. Fair Pay Agreements (which Spinoff staff writer Charlotte Muru-Lanning spent weeks of her life explaining) are on the chopping block, as are housing density standards. Other policies, like fees free university and legalising abortion will probably say. Henry ends his piece by reflecting on the value of policies that create physical infrastructure, rather than altered regulations. “There are plenty of policies people will remember from the last government, but a lot of it will be fairly easy to undo – because it exists on paper, not in concrete.”
Number of the week: two weeks to count specials
Why does it take so long to count special votes? Graeme Edgeler explains. “They’ll be checking every physical copy of an electoral roll used by any election worker to cross off names. And they’ll be checking that your name and my name have been crossed off only one roll. That your name wasn’t also crossed off on one of the rolls used in any of the other 50 voting places in your electorate (or any of the hundreds of voting places in a Māori electorate). And in the few cases where a name has been crossed off twice, they’ll investigate. They’ll call you up and ask you where and when you voted. They might visit.”
A message from Spinoff editor Madeleine Chapman Thanks to the generous support of Spinoff Members, we were able to cover this election more expansively than ever before with writers reporting from Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, New Plymouth, Wairarapa, Gisborne, Auckland and Northland. With the results in, we will continue to interrogate and report on those who lead this country with rigour, range and humour. If you value The Spinoff’s political coverage, now is a great time to join the thousands of people who support The Spinoff by becoming a member or making a donation. - Madeleine Chapman, Spinoff editor
Kiwi are roaming Wellington. Not all will survive
This brutal line pulled me into an update on Wellington’s kiwi. “Recently the nation was outraged at the welfare of a kiwi at a Miami Zoo, but we can turn a blind eye to the harsh reality at home: every kiwi chick that hatches in an area with no protection against introduced predators is near certain to be killed, most probably by a stoat.” Peter Kirkman, leading the Capital Kiwi project, describes how the kiwi are doing. “Our monitoring shows that the remnant stoat population is consistently low enough to allow for kiwi release. As birds establish territories and pair up, we expect there to be kiwi eggs and chicks on our hills. The trap network should provide these chicks with a vastly improved chance of survival. There will be some casualties with this approach and not everything will go our way all the time.”
The best part of creating the Books Confessional
The Spinoff’s new Books Confessional feature has been running for a couple of months now, so I asked books editor Claire Mabey what she’s learned so far. “We've done 13 confessionals so far and of those, Ulysses by James Joyce has been 'fessed up to three times as the book that people lie about having read. It's not really surprising as it's one of those weirdly well known novels that hardly anyone has read, but funny to me that people actually do feel the pressure to lie about it. I was absolutely delighted to discover that Raf Manji is something of a kindred spirit as a fellow fan of Nicola Barker. Hardly anyone else I know, even in pretty intense bookish circles, has even heard of her (start with Darkmans, her best novel imho). Nicola Toki's confessional was written with such depth and joy it made me want to join her book club; and Giselle Clarkson's has something for everyone and every age (no wonder she is such a great author and artist).”
Everything else
What to watch this long weekend (wherein yours truly attempts to persuade herself of the concept of TV)
Legal systems still have so far to go in understanding digital harassment
What October 14 means for Indigenous people in Aotearoa and Australia
An exquisite essay about language and digital communication and families from Aotearoa writer Xiaole Zhan
“They’re already dead” -two useful reflections on the conflict in Palestine and a podcast episode about what a ground invasion in Gaza would be like
Assessing the suits on show at the Rugby World Cup
Who are the new Green, Act, New Zealand First, Te Pāti Māori, National and Labour MPs? Which Labour MPs have lost their seats?
Even if you hate football, you’ll love new documentary Beckham
Andrew Little’s highs and lows
An amazing set of photos about contemporary gender expression in eastern Europe
How the Tongan eruption created a mini ozone hole
Writing this story about the role of Facebook advertising in the New Zealand election led me to this big picture piece wondering what social media platforms really want out of elections.
There’s an impending shortage of mall Santas. Alex Casey went to Santa School to “ho ho ho” with the best of them.
Extremely impressive investigation into how a Fijian drug trafficker with political connections managed to escape prosecution in Fiji
How to survive working in the Beehive
