Major discovery: There are at least three other New Zealands

We asked their residents to explain themselves

Morena, and welcome to another week of The Spinoff Weekend. I am trying so hard not to discuss the weather conditions in every edition but it’s difficult, because weather is one of those things that happens to everyone. All this to say that this week, heavy warm rain in Auckland reminded me of monsoons in India growing up, the rush and torrent of a storm, the clarity of a morning cleansed by water. There’s even some nostalgia in the damp washing that takes far too long to dry. But no matter the forecast for your weekend, I hope you’ll join me in reading some excellent articles from The Spinoff and the rest of the internet, because every weekend needs some #content. A cup of Coffee Supreme doesn’t hurt either. Let’s go.

-Shanti Mathias, staff writer

PS: Sorry for the lack of images in this week’s newsletter – Substack seems to be having site-wide issues with them. We should be back to normal next week.

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New Zealands galore

Stewart Sowman-Lund learned this week that there are not one, but three other places called "New Zealand”, all in the UK. “I reached out to a bunch of people living in the three New Zealands and managed to speak to a couple. I’ve asked them what New Zealand is like and whether it has anything connected to our country. I expected that I was the last person to learn we aren’t the only New Zealand – but it sounds like this is really not common knowledge!” he says. Read his investigation into the other New Zealands here.

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Why is Auckland Council trashing its own climate plan?

The inimitable Hayden Donnell has gotten cross with Auckland Council again, and for good reason: despite declaring a climate emergency, the council was taken to court by a group of environmental activists who said the council’s land transport plan, or RLTP, wasn’t doing enough for the environment. The council won, having successfully argued that it didn’t actually matter that the transport plan doesn’t align with its own climate obligations. Will the upcoming local government elections be a continuation of what Donnell calls “a hallowed three-yearly tradition where council wards [are] won by candidates upset at the prospect of making even a small effort to stop our oceans turning into a tepid soup”? If this legal decision is anything to go by, it may be likely.

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Number of the week: 2 minutes and 15 seconds

A few weeks ago, this very newsletter discussed the “omnishambles” of the very expensive new Christchurch stadium. On Thursday, the funding for the stadium was approved, a majority of the submissions the council received having recommended that the stadium be built, cost blowouts be damned. As part of the debate on approving the extra $150 million in funding, Peter Morrison of Hospitality NZ sang a stadium-themed version of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ to the councillors, which took two minutes — at least two minutes too long. Still reeling from the performance, Sam Brooks delivered a blow by blow recap, prompting me to wonder: is this the kind of singing that would convince you to spend more money on a stadium?

• In other stadium hot takes: A former NZ Rugby exec argues Eden Park is a sinking ship and Auckland should stop keeping it afloat.

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Ms Marvel and the superpower of representation

I was an avid reader in high school, but I didn’t know much about comics. But when one of my (internet) friends told me about Ms Marvel, I immediately requested it from the library. I remember picking it up and taking it home, where I was amazed to find a comic book featuring a brown teenager like me – this one a Pakistani Muslim teenager from New Jersey. Since then, I’ve had considerable ~more complex~ thoughts about what representation is, but having media that looks more like the world we live in still matters. For The Spinoff, Sapna Samant watches the new adaptation of Ms Marvel on Disney+ and remembers the influence the Partition of India had on her family — and why empathy is so important.

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What happens to the restaurants when a food court closes?

Charlotte Muru-Lanning grew up eating at Mercury Plaza and Food Alley, two food courts in central Auckland known for cheap and delicious Asian dishes. “Food courts occupy a special place in the shared food memories of many, a nostalgia steeped in ramshackle interiors and cheerful food,” she writes. But Mercury Plaza closed due to the City Rail Link construction, and Food Alley had to leave its building to make space for a block of apartments. Some good news, however: many of the businesses from these food courts still exist, just in different locations; Muru-Lanning has compiled a list of where to find them. A useful list for a weekend lunch or dinner if you live in Tāmaki Makaurau.

• Covid cases are higher than ever. Here’s why you should still mask up when dining out.

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On the latest episode of The Spinoff’s politics podcast Gone by Lunchtime: The panel discuss the surging winter Covid wave; what Jacinda Ardern achieved at Nato, the EU and in Australia; Christopher Luxon’s own trip abroad; Te Pāti Māori’s AGM; and David Seymour’s demands for the first 100 days of a National-Act government

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Everything else!

Many, many, many more links to read this weekend

• After a big public gathering, who picks up the rubbish?

• From the New York Times, a beautiful analysis about how the shame of poverty can become a compulsion to lie

• Opossum World, is closing. One less reason to visit Napier.

• Hachette Book Group has brought a legal case against the Internet Archive for their library project. It’s a perfect example of how the open access ideology of the internet rubs against copyright norms and publishers profits.

• More poetry sales in Aotearoa are a good thing

• Hear us out: netball shouldn’t be a contact sport

• Where The Crawdads Sing has been on the bestsellers list for years, and it’s about to become a blockbuster movie. It’s the perfect time for a follow-up to earlier allegations that the author was involved in a murder in Zambia

• The idea of who is a New Zealand farmer can change, says a farmer who is big on TikTok

• The Guardian has published a big investigation into how Uber convinced governments and regulators to take it easy on them. The influence of the tech company’s lobbying stood out to me in particular.

• The new CEO of Netsafe has a big job in front of him.

• What’s up with the Pacific Islands Forum? The Detail talks climate change and geopolitics in Oceania.

• You might have seen them already, but the astonishing images of the galaxy from the James Webb Space telescope are gorgeously overwhelming – and very sparkly.