The problem with Auckland's 'graffiti problem'

The council might be looking for solutions in the wrong places

Kia ora and welcome to The Weekend. Are you experiencing the time-warp-rush feeling of hurtling towards the end of the year? Same lol. At least thoughtfully put together gift guides are a balm to read, even if you don’t buy anything – or is that just my late-stage-consumerism brainworms? My current determination to finish a knitting project before December 31 is compelling me to read articles, listen to podcasts, and watch TV with needles in my hands (thankfully, it’s a very easy pattern). Even if you don’t have any projects that are making you concerned about the incessant onwards march of time, you can still spend some time with a cup of Coffee Supreme and some good writing.

-Shanti Mathias, staff writer

Why remove graffiti?

A gallery of Auckland graffiti. Photos: Chris Schulz

Graffiti is everywhere, from tiny tags on utility boxes and lamp posts to more elaborate artworks in abandoned buildings (not to mention, uh, the metaverse). Auckland Council spends more than $4m cleaning it up a year, and Chris Schulz wanted to write about it. “I see graffiti on buildings, busses, bins, trains, tunnels, walls, fences and car parks,” Chris says. “I wanted to know why graffiti artists do it, and what the appeal is, so I found one. He told me it’s “30% thrill, 30% graffiti and 30% the mission” (he didn’t say what the other 10% is). Auckland Council can’t get on top it — but there are answers to be found, especially in South Auckland. The question is, will the rest of the city listen?”

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The Rupert Murdoch protection bill

Once upon a time I was an 11 year old voraciously reading Guardian Weekly newspapers trying to figure out why the News of the World phone hacking scandal was so bad. I’ve since learned at least a little about journalism ethics, the tabloid press, and media history – and some of those pieces came together in this essay by Toby Manhire about Rupert Murdoch and his New Zealand dealings. He may not own any local outlets today, but Murdoch’s media empire has influenced Aotearoa for many years; even in 1965 Norman Kirk and Keith Holyoake were debating the role of Murdoch as he bought part of Wellington newspaper The Dominion. Toby’s piece features heaps of juicy details (down to the Murdoch press’s latest Trump-trolling) but also big-picture thinking about what politicised media ownership achieves.

Number of the week: 80% less likely to die at 40 km/hour

Research endorses slowing down. Image: Tina Tiller

Lowering speed limits for cars is a controversial proposition: people love to get places fast in their vroom vroom machines. But in urban and suburban roads, other measures – like traffic lights – mean that lowering speeds doesn’t make a meaningful difference to travel times or carbon emissions, and faster speeds compel people to live further away, and travel more. Transport expert Simon Kingham looks at the evidence to support lower speed limits. One of the most compelling pieces is that lower speeds mean potential accidents are much, much less deadly, and they have a range of other flow-on effects that can make towns and cities better places to live.

• Two more transport stories: Is the petrol car dead? And what is the true cost of “free” car parking?

Writing The Weekend lets me spend more time with some of the best stories from The Spinoff each week. It's always hard to choose, because there's a remarkable range of stories from light-hearted takes on reality TV to serious long-form investigations. The support of our members make many of these stories possible and allow me to share some of our best stories with readers. Thanks for being here – and please become a member if you want to keep all our journalism happening.

‘Good piercings aren’t cheap and cheap piercings aren’t good’

I have a couple of non-natural holes in my head I’m relatively fond of, and part of me always wants to get more. But after a horrible 18-month healing process for my last cartilage piercing I’ve established an intervention team of three dear friends who have to interrogate me to make sure that I really really want a new piercing before I make an appointment for one. After reading Alex Casey’s feature about the lack of regulation in the New Zealand piercing industry, I’m wondering how many more people around the country have had to curtail their desire for new jewellery due to an improperly managed body-part puncture.

• The Friday Poem: leaving holes in body and soul

Which bug is the best?

Insects are our FRIENDS (except sandflies, can’t convince me there sorry) Image: Tina Tiller

On a walk with a friend last weekend I was delighted to find a “weta hotel” in a park, its specially sized dark hollows occupied by the gleaming chitinous insects. New Zealand has heaps of amazing native insects that don’t get half the attention they deserve, so Marcia Welch introduces us to the contestants running for Bug of the Year (in collaboration with iNaturalist). It’s a great opportunity to admire the smart evolutionary tactics that create beautiful speckled lichen moths, vibrating giant dragonflies and bouncy robust grasshoppers. (I can’t find the tweet now, but someone suggested that the bird of the year get to eat the bug of the year, a food-web-by- popular-vote proposition).

• Science news: everything Sāmoa and other Pacific countries are fighting for at Cop27

Everything else✨

• It’s not just me panicking about the year ending: we are literally losing time because the planet’s time systems are kept aligned by occasionally adding “leap seconds”

• National has announced a new plan for being tough on crime by sending youth offenders to military bootcamps

• My main appreciation of sports comes from good writing about niche aspects of it, so two stories in that vein: Madeleine Chapman is still dreaming about The Hand and the Paris Olympics mascots have been revealed

• The criteria for people who were eligible for Covid booster shots expanded this week. Should they be more widely accessible?

• I enjoyed talking to some of the people involved with a new documentary that looks at how we can face future threats and do something about them.

• Speaking of the future, this NZ Geographic feature talks to people who have been thinking about future catastrophe a lot – some of Aotearoa’s “preppers”. I found it unexpectedly poignant.

• It feels very different being a Pacific rugby fan in New Plymouth, says Auckland transplant Sela Jane Hopgood

• H/t to my colleague Sam Brooks for pointing me to a new addition to my favourite podcast genre of “two dudes just… talking about stuff”. If Books Could Kill discusses the shallow intellectualism of mass market “airport books”.

• The Football World Cup starts in Qatar next week. Catherine McGregor reviews a new documentary about the corruption at the heart of the sport’s governing body

• The Basque language, spoken in parts of Spain and Portugal doesn’t seem to have any close language relatives and has always been a bit of an enigma. A new discovery shows that Basque has a longer history than previously expected.

• The 48 Hour film festival is ridiculously impressive. Who makes it happen?

• The reality TV show based on barbecues

• Whenever I look at Buzzfeed, its social-media sourced headlines seem increasingly dire. This feature looks at the legacy of the viral brand.

• And finally, this made me laugh because I imagined doing the same thing: Dan Kois, an American journalist, said yes to every random PR request in his inbox and mused on the urge to self-promote