Head for Debate
Commonwealth Sec-Gen and former New Zealand 2IC Don McKinnon indicates the next Leader of the Commonwealth might be up for debate after the Queen moves on.
Tag Archives: Age (The)
Tiger’s Edge
“Stevie has been in my ear about it and he has definitely told me about his auto racing … I would maybe like to possibly catch one of his races,” says Tiger Woods, commenting on a…
Mystified About Money
Don Brash, the world’s second-longest serving central banker, admits he finds current currency fluctuations as baffling as the next guy.
Russell’s leg up
Russell’s main rival for the little naked gold man was “Tom Hanks, who wears very little for much of Castaway. To the Academy this shameless overexposure smacked of desperation, an all-shorts-off attempt to counter…
More Knox
“Very different and very daring” – Auckland University Professor Albert Wendt. “For a New Zealander to win an Australian prize seems absolutely incredible,” says Knox. “The only time we can ever get…
World Desire
Melbourne’s RMIT Gallery hosts Desire, a show on fashion as art, featuring “a beautiful dress by World New Zealand, constructed from a continuous zip that spills out onto the floor”.
Savage thoughts
King Kapisi spins the crowd: “Taking the crowd through a full turntable tutorial, including “the crab” and other techniques, Kapisi has them in the palm of his hand”.
Green Edge
The Greens are a presence in parliaments around the world – the revolution started in Wellington.
Everywhere you go…
Neil Finn, international star and “nice guy” of New Zealand pop, has invited a few friends to perform his “unmistakable” sound in Auckland.
Antipodean Greatness
Aussie journalist ponders greatness, noting New Zealand’s “two truly international figures,” Sir Edmund Hillary and Ernest Rutherford.
Edge Unity
“There are no two countries in the world that are closer historically, culturally and economically than Australia and New Zealand,” stated Australian PM John Howard on a friendship visit, claiming a “relationship that has substance and durability…
Victory: The Aftermath
More stories from across the globe: “this moment is directly connected to those childhood imaginings” quotes The Advertiser; Crowe “shocked and emotional” in the LA Times; “I was thinking this is one of those bad…
Making Waves
“Where once New Zealand seemed bent on shrinking the public sector to anorexic proportions, it is now pumping it full of new blood. New Zealand has a long record of setting global trends. It was first…
Wonderboy
New Zealand apprentice jockey Michael Walker 16 years old, 18 months riding, 224 winners, 100 this half-season. Phenomenal.
Jazzy sound
New Zealand’s c.l. bob impress in Melbourne, “an inventive ensemble whose music ranges from AfroCaribbean shuffles to Hendrix-style mayhem”.
Anti-nuke Action
Rainbow Warrior survivor Chris Robinson and New Zealand-based Henk Haazen and his family form part of the flotilla prostesting the shipping of nuclear waste through the Tasman sea. Australian shipments also raise ire.
Smiling Like
Smiling Like is apprentice Michael Walker’s lucky horse. The Wellington Cup was her second victory with the “boom” New Zealander in the saddle.
Scraps of genius
New Zealand-born artist Rosalie Gascoigne used roadside ephemera in her work: “from the grasses, pebbles, discarded roadside trophies, road signs and softdrinks crates, she built an extraordinary body of work. In her hands and…
Tools out
Carving New Zealand jade is among the retirement pursuits under consideration by Australian songster Rolf Harris.
Diversionary Tactics
Victoria’s government is using New Zealand’s successful diversion scheme to “break the cycle of crime” for young offenders.
Different way of seeing
“It’s generally accepted that what really great artists do is change the way that we see things, and Rosalie . . . changed the way we see our country,” says Australian arts writer Hannah…
Coastal Edge
Victoria looks to follow New Zealand’s lead on marine reserves, seen as a “back-up” for species conservation, and a way of replenishing fishing stocks. Prince Charles supports a similar idea in the Bay if Biscay.
The authors’ luck
The selection of New Zealand novels Baby No-Eyes, The Vintner’s Luck and Believers to the Bright Coast on the short list of six for the new A$40,000 Tasmanian Pacific Region Prize for best novel…
Midsumma Dream
New Zealander Nigel Higgins is the man in charge with making Midsumma, Melbourne’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender festival, the queen of events.
Bank on Campbell
Michael Campbell, in “irresistible” form, caps a brilliant year by claming the title of New Zealand’s best-paid sportsman from Steve Williams, caddy for Tiger Woods.
Robber Robbie
That’s “my intellectual property on his shoulder,” says leading haka specialist Pita Sharples, referring to the tattoo sported by Brit singer Robbie Williams.
Who Supervises the Supervisors?
New Zealand economist Tim Hazledine detects over-supervision – a proliferation in the ranks of “pseudo-managers monitoring their underlings”.
Walker Chases Health
1976 Olympic 1500m champion John Walker was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease three years ago. “I would give up all my medals and all the world records for my health,” says the New Zealander who cracked 100…
Neill at home
“It’s good to get back to New Zealand and Australia to make a film because I feel more at home in that part of the world,” says Sam Neill, now on screen in Aussie…
Ozone in Godzone
Having suffered under the hole, New Zealand should be among the first places to feel the benefit of ozone regeneration.
Proof of quality
Oscar noms tipped for Crowe’s Proof of Life turn as kidnap and ransom rescue specialist Terry Thorne.
Flu in Freetown
Sierra Leone was an important staging port on the long route home for WWI ANZAC troops. Freetown’s cemetery commemorates a handful of Australians and a lone New Zealander, their journeys cut short by influenza.
Tuna Tussle
How much is too much? New Zealand, Australia and Japan have brought in independent scientific experts to settle the row over tuna quotas.
Stadium award
“The trend has finally swung away from the exaggeration of post-modernism … Buildings are now plain, restrained and professional.” Capturing the mood, Wellington’s WestpacTrust Stadium picked up the international section at the Australian National…
Balibo Five
Investigations are being renewed into the killing of five journalists (including New Zealander Gary Cunningham) during Indonesian’s invasion of East Timor twenty-five years ago.
Phar Lap Not Spiked
A mystery finally solved. Phar Lap, the new bio of the legend concludes that he was not poisoned as previously suspected. His death in America was due to duodenitis proximal jejunitis, a disease not identified until 1983.
Framing the truth
Wrestling with the Angel, Michael King’s bio of Janet Frame, has generated acclaim, column inches and voluminous sales in New Zealand and overseas. Stephanie Dowrick describes Frame as “(one of) the two great 20th-century…
Seeding Change
New Zealand scientists from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research have been collaborating with their Australian and British counterparts in experiments that may hold the answer to global warming. By adding extra iron to the…
Pask Bask
Where do you go for the top Bordeaux? Edge Hawkes Bay winery CJ Pask makes the best Bordeaux-style wine in the world, according to the world’s premier wine judging event.
Legendary Kiwi Credited with Giving Great Journalist His Start
Rex Lopez died late last month, ending an illustrious career as a journalist and critic. Lopez spent much of his life in Australia, but legendary Kiwi journalist, radio commentator, war correspondent, novelist and television personality Eric Baume…
NZ-born Leader of Australian Welfare Reform
New Zealand-born Stuart McClure, an ex-Franciscan priest from Mission Australia is chairman of Australia’s Welfare Reform Reference Group, charged with leading improvements to the Aussie Welfare system that was once widely believed to be…
Bloodlust ballet brings in the crowds in Australia
The Royal New Zealand Ballet’s Dracula is slaying audiences across the Tasman. Described as “grand gothic entertainment layering gloom, psychological gutsiness and new eroticism over a hackneyed old plot” it has opened in Melbourne…
Japan Harpoons ANZAC Conservation Efforts
Japan has gestured towards restarting ‘scientific’ whale-killing, despite stern objection form New Zealand and Australia and environmental groups. New Zealand IWC Commissioner Jim McLay, who is seen as a key anti-whaling speaker inside the commission, said the…
Stead and Knox star at Melbourne Writer’s Festival
New Zealand writers CK Stead “whose new novel has earned rave reviews in Britain and the US” and Elizabeth Knox feature among global talent including Aboriginal leader Pat Dodson, Zadie Smith (White Teeth), Alain…
Helen Clark: Good Bloke
“Good bloke” politics is playing well in “reform-fatigued” Australian electorates. The new model is not gender-specific. Prime Minister Helen Clark in New Zealand may like to imply that it is, but she has profited from the same…
New Generation Makes Pilgrimage to Gallipoli
A new dawn rose in Gallipoli as generation of young New Zealanders and Australians, mostly backpackers, (the first generation in either country’s history not to have seen war) came to ANZAC cove.
Why is There an NZ in ANZAC?
“In Australia the word Anzac has slowly changed its meaning. The letters NZ – and the New Zealanders – have virtually been excised … It is worth recalling, occasionally, that at Gallipoli the smaller nation paid…
Annual Call of the Bugle Unites All
“This morning at dawn, perhaps 10,000 Australians and New Zealanders, probably thousands more, will stand above that beach, in the shadow of those cliffs, moved across the world by their nations’ deepest and most enduring shared myth, hypnotised…
White Mouse Roars Again
New Zealand-born hero of the French Resistance during WWII, Nancy Wake, is considering moving to France or Britain, despite belated suggestions of recognition by the Australian government, “I am an Officer of the Legion of…
High-flyer Who Went Over the Edge
Mike Bastion was a high-flyer. Few flew higher or faster than the bright, brash young man who rose from nowhere to carve his initials in two of the chanciest games of all: stockbroking and…
New Zealand Sets the Standard in How to Say Sorry
“The question of an official apology to the indigenous people which is proving so contentious in Australia, has been dealt with quite differently in New Zealand, as part of the settlement process initiated by the Waitangi Tribunal”….
That Auld Mug? Why Should Anyone Care?
“No wonder the Kiwis hate us. This week, Team New Zealand became the first syndicate to successfully defend the America’s Cup in its 149-year history, and the Australian media barely bothered to acknowledge it.” The trans-Tasman perspective.
Champions
Solid bowling and strong fielding led New Zealand to victory in the Women’s Cricket World Cup on December 23. The trans-Tasman final was “probably the most exciting match in the history of Women’s International Cricket”. More coverage…
