Chris Hipkins chases China
The world leaders edition
Kia ora and welcome to The Weekend. I have been moving house this week so have had no interesting thoughts, trite observations, or bouts of unexpected enthusiasm of the type which I usually rely on to fill this paragraph. Instead my brain has been all “will this fit in this box” and “where is my phone charger”. Also on repeat is something I heard some YouTuber say: “not every day can be a slay”. I am thankful (?) to the internet for these phrases that crawl around in my mind when I am otherwise no thoughts head empty. I am also thankful to all the people with presumably more focused cerebral cortexes (I don’t know anything about neuroscience) for writing things that I can link to and you can click on.
-Shanti Mathias, staff writer
Chris Hipkins’ whirlwind week in China
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and a delegation of businesspeople and journalists — including Spinoff editor Madeleine Chapman — have been in China this week. He’s met Xi Jinping, arguably the world’s most powerful man, and been down-to-the-minute scheduled to progress through a hall full of New Zealand trade items to be poised to flip sausages at the right minute. “What’s really surprised me (or maybe shocked is the better word) this week in China has been the sheer number of events they packed in for the prime minister,” Chapman told me. “Every day involved at least four events, usually with a speech from Hipkins, and constant travel between venues. It’s exhausting as someone who followed him around and took notes. I can’t imagine the toll that weeks like this would take on the prime minister himself.” Hipkins can’t get too focused on geopolitics: back in Aotearoa, cabinet minister Kiri Allan faces accusations of poor working relationships in her offices, which Hipkins has had to respond to too. Chapman writes about the “pressures” of political life at home and abroad that Hipkins has navigated this week.
Kilinochchi: a short story
“There are no other mourners on this windy day in her Auckland garden. Only wax-eyes chittering and commenting – her favourite bird, olive-green feathers and bright eyes stencilled with silver, so small an entire family can fit inside her cupped hands; their te reo Māori name tauhou, new arrival, Nisha’s constant story despite fifteen years in her adopted land. Rain settles like tiny diamonds on her hair. The prickly presence stands so close she can feel it breathing.” This piercing, beautiful story by Auckland-based Sri Lankan-New Zealander writer Himali McInnes, about what war does to the way we love, won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for the Pacific region this year. The full story is on The Spinoff this morning.
The Friday Poem: I wish I’d been a Frenchman, by Elizabeth Smither
Sticking your neck out
Josh Kronfeld didn’t mean to be an activist. He just felt strongly about something: nuclear testing in the Pacific, which he was willing to support by decorating his trademark headgear with the words “stop nuclear testing” and a peace sign. At the time, a rugby player making a political statement was a big deal — even the prime minister commented on it. Toby Morris writes about Kronfeld in this month’s Side Eye; he’s part of a bigger story about athletes choosing to make a stand. “These feel like cracks in [our] staunch façade … bringing rugby into the present day,” he says.
There’s no better time to become a Spinoff member
As we ramp up our coverage of the 2023 election, there is no better time to become a Spinoff member and support independent journalism in Aotearoa.
The financial support of our members is essential, particularly during an election. Every donation will help expand our political coverage from extra episodes of our Gone by Lunchtime podcast, to more on-the-ground reporting on the campaign trail, to more “wtf does that mean?” explainers and maybe even some election memes from editor Madeleine Chapman.
Support our coverage of the 2023 election today by becoming a Spinoff member or making a new donation.
Brooke Van Velden is excited about the Tāmaki campaign
For a profile this week, Stewart Sowman-Lund goes doorknocking with Act deputy Brooke Van Velden, who is campaigning to represent the (historically very National) electorate of Tāmaki. A former Green Party supporter, Van Velden says that in the right-wing party she has found open dialogue and debate. Sowman-Lund asks her about the idea that Act “dog-whistles” around race issues. Van Velden responds: no, but “people feel frustrated… we do need to acknowledge that the Māori language has been taken up by the government much faster than it’s been taken up by the community and that does cause frustration.” Tipped as a future Act leader — but fully occupied with her electorate campaign for now —Van Velden says that she wants to stick to politics while she feels she can make a difference.
Attempting the forbidden cake
The Spinoff has long waxed lyrical about the dominance that the Australian Women’s Weekly Cake Book had over some people’s childhoods. The cakes — elaborately sculpted facsimilies of real world objects made in edible form — are very, very easy to screw up. Somewhere there is an essay to be written that connects the dominance of “hyperrealistic cakes” made to be consumed by screens not mouths to the performance of feminine labour involved in catering for children’s birthdays; in the meantime, writer Gabi Lardies has attempted the tricky tip truck cake. Will her attempt look anything like the avocado-green, licorice-lined original?
Everything else
Quotes
“I don’t read poems to know the future. I read them to hold the future at bay.”
“You don’t have to be happy in order to be interested or enriched or transformed by the world.”
“There are huge blips in my memory. Days of complete inattendance. No chorus of birds. Just stretches of time where the spirit drifted along the ether, severed from the body.”
“If you have that much caffeine you can get sick and some kids have bad reactions to Prime and have got sent to the hospital because of it” (an investigation into a playground black market)
“The reason why we have poverty is by choice. We choose not to look after these people. We choose not to take action.” (See more of this interview below, or the full transcript at the link!)
Animals
Lots of orca news lately. A good time to return to this comic about threats the species faces
Okay and also this essay about orcas by Tim Winton
What’s going on with The Bear’s second season?
This piece about the meaning of Australia’s swift parrots (no not that kind of Swiftie) made me think about the different ways it is possible to take action for the environment
It pairs well with Kathryn Van Beek asking: did her uncle shoot the last huia?
If you’re feeling inspired about birds, try counting them
Miscellaneous (it’s always miscellaneous but I was really enjoying the headings)
Life hacks like “if you smile you’ll feel better” are often based on really bad data
You’re not too good to be a tourist (If you are feeling jealous of friends enjoying northern hemisphere summer right now, try this instead)
The government has offered some relief to the university sector but job cuts still loom. For theatre, it could be devastating, writes lecturer Nicola Hyland. “This is about more than theatre. This is about continuing the whakapapa of the oldest artistic form in the world.”
The plane! The plane! The international crisis of Chris Hipkins’ plane!
After a year of Te Whatu Ora, what’s changed in the health sector?
Shanti’s podcast corner: there’s a lot you can learn about yourself by walking at night — this exquisite four-part podcast has been solace for my frazzled brain this week
