One-Off Jonah Lomu Broke Barriers and Tackles
It is exactly 25 years since Jonah Lomu flattened Mike Catt to score at the Rugby World Cup, where the All Black transformed into a superstar, Paul Rees writes for The Guardian. “When Lomu arrived…
Tag Archives: Guardian (The)
Todd Muller Plots Downfall of Jacinda Ardern
Todd Muller’s launch last week in the Te Puna rugby clubrooms was not flashy or digital; in one sense it was politics of the old school. But for those who listened to the long,…
Sam Cane is Ready for New Zealand’s Top Rugby Job
Like former All Blacks captain Richie McCaw, who learned his craft on the pastoral planes of the Mackenzie Country, the freshly appointed Sam Cane’s rural background in Reporoa, Waikato has become a fundamental part…
Hilary Bracefield was a True Polymath
“Writing on a wide range of subjects from Stravinsky to the poetry of her fellow New Zealander Fleur Adcock, my friend and one-time colleague at the University of Ulster, Hilary Bracefield, has died,…
James Shaw on Our Economic Climate Post-COVID-19
Cheap, renewable electricity is one way of reviving economies and preserving New Zealand’s natural environment, Climate Change Minister and co-leader of the Green Party James Shaw argues in an opinion piece for The Guardian. Shaw…
Football Forward Katie Rood Embraces Veganism
“I have gone from five years of continuous injuries to five years with almost nothing,” professional footballer Katie Rood, 27, tells The Guardian’s Suzanne Wrack. The change? In 2015 the New Zealand international and…
When John Walker Ran the Forgotten Mile in 1977
Everyone remembers the cricket but few recall the day New Zealand running hero John Walker took to the track in Melbourne, Adam Collins writes for The Guardian’s weekly cricket email, The Spin. It started with…
Endangered Kea Image a Shot of the 2000s
Photographers working for UK newspapers The Guardian and The Observer pick their favourite moments from over two decades reporting around the world. A fleeting moment, captured by Murdo MacLeod, in the South Island features. “The…
Escaping COVID-19 Chaos in New York
It started with an ominous email: “We urge New Zealanders currently travelling overseas to consider returning home while commercial options remain available,” the foreign affairs ministry wrote. For citizens of the nation at the…
Taika Waititi Takes on the Chocolate Factory
Academy Award-winning director New Zealander Taika Waititi has signed a deal with Netflix to write, direct and produce two animated series based on the works of the children’s author, Roald Dahl, The Guardian reports. The…
How Our Space Industry is Causing Turbulence
Life on the Mahia Peninsula used to be quiet: surfing beaches, historical monuments, and good snapper fishing, Eleanor Ainge Roy writes for The Guardian. Then space came to town. Four years ago, Rocket Lab’s Peter…
Chief Censor David Shanks Tackles the C-Word
When David Shanks presents himself at international conferences, his peers recoil slightly, Charlotte Graham-McLay reports for The Guardian. “I’d introduce myself as, ‘Hi, I’m David from New Zealand. New Zealand’s chief censor,’” Shanks says. “And…
UK Ambassador Laura Clarke’s Aim in Office
In an opinion piece for The Guardian, Laura Clarke, the British high commissioner to New Zealand, writes about why the UK wants to strengthen its relationship with Māori. “The connections between the UK and New…
Bret McKenzie Speaks on the Oddness of Fame
The Flight of the Conchords star Bret McKenzie, 43, who is guest curating this year’s New Zealand Festival, speaks to The Guardian’s Charlotte Graham-McLay about his career thus far and the cost of compromise. Although…
Sky Shepherds a Vital Farming Tool
Corey Lambeth, a New Zealand farmer, originally purchased a drone for photography, but he quickly realised the device had more practical applications. “I thought ‘I’ll just give it a nudge on the sheep and…
Housing Crisis Bites in Northland
A 30 per cent rise in people waiting for state housing in Northland is fuelling New Zealand’s “desperate” shortage in affordable homes, resulting in some families living in the woods, and in huts built…
New Zealand Launches First HIV Positive Sperm Bank
The world’s first HIV positive sperm bank has been launched in New Zealand in an effort to reduce the stigma experienced by those living with the virus, the Press Association reports in an article…
Aldous Harding Holding Our Focus
New Zealand musician Aldous Harding is popular: she’s sold out shows for her tour and headlines London’s Roundhouse next month. Young women who present themselves as she does, daring you to turn away, are…
Happy Sad Grant Trebilco Opens Up in New Film
New Zealand-born Grant Trebilco, who lives in Bondi, is one of the five subjects of Melbourne director Genevieve Bailey’s feature film Happy Sad Man, which investigates how men, who represent 75 per cent of…
Scott McLaughlin Wins Bathurst 1000
Supercars series leader Christchurch-born Scott McLaughlin, 26, claimed a maiden Bathurst 1000 title at Mount Panorama after a dramatic finish, the Australian Associated Press reports in a story published on The Guardian’s news site. Ford’s McLaughlin…
New Zealander Subject of UK Mental Health Exhibit
The Museum of Lost and Found Potential launches in London this week, marking World Mental Health Day with an exhibition that hopes to encourage empathy, action and even anger by showing what mental illness…
Chit-Chat Flows Easily in NZ but Does It in Europe?
“In New Zealand, small talk flows so easily, a ceaseless background banter you become inured to and engage in unthinkingly. And it often goes so much deeper than exchanging shallow pleasantries,” Guardian journalist Eleanor…
Why Ihumātao Truly is a Piece of New Zealand’s Soul
“In a city that has destroyed or forgotten most of its past, fragments of Auckland’s deep histories still survive at Ihumātao,” history curator at the Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira Lucy Mackintosh…
Joseph Michael Lights Up UN with Climate Messages
Auckland University of Technology artist in residence Joseph Michael lit the United Nations headquarters in New York last week with an immersive installation that featured images of an iceberg and the messages of six young…
Helen Clark Lays Out Her Reasons for Legalising It
In an opinion piece for the UK’s Guardian newspaper, former prime minister and member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy Helen Clark explains why a ‘yes’ in next year’s referendum is a vote…
Petra Leary Captures Views of Daily Geometry
“Petra Leary sees the world from above. She skates around cities, focusing her lens on becoming the world’s top aerial photographer. The 28-year-old New Zealander is the subject of a newly released Loading Docs…
Poet Selena Tusitala Marsh Rails Against Racism
She blows in like a song carried on a powerful current: a wild-haired woman, larger than life, carrying a tall carved stick. She loses things in that hair, she says; finds pens in there…
Anna Paquin Talks about Breaking Oscar Protocol
New Zealand-raised actor Anna Paquin, 37, who stars alongside Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Martin Scorcese’s The Irishman, talks to The Guardian about breaking Oscar protocol, loving film-set pranks, and being a…
Annaleese Jochems’s Debut Novel Alive and Squirming
“Cynthia, the simpering, scheming, covetous emotional sinkhole of New Zealander Annaleese Jochems’ assured debut novel, Baby, is alive and squirming; a memorable addition to the growing coterie of unapologetic antiheroines (dis)gracing the pages of…
ABs Deliver Bledisloe Pain With Wallaby Whitewash
“New Zealand secured the 2019 Bledisloe Cup with a resounding 36-0 victory against Australia at Eden Park to dent any hopes of a Wallabies resurgence ahead of next month’s Rugby World Cup,” Australian Associated…
Fossils of Largest Ever Parrot Found in Otago
The fossils of an enormous parrot, estimated to have weighed about 7kg, have been found near Saint Bathans in Central Otago. The Guardian reports on the discovery. Palaeontologists have named the new species Heracles inexpectatus…
Artist’s Black Finch Project Aims to Stop Mine
Queenstown-born visual artist and writer Charlotte Watson is the instigator of the Black Finch Project, for which more than 1400 artworks featuring the endangered black-throated finch have been sent to Australian politicians in protest…
Anti-Hate Satire Jojo Rabbit Trailer Out
The first trailer for Taika Waititi’s new “anti-hate” satirical film, set in Nazi Germany, has been released, featuring the much-loved Māori-Jewish actor and director playing a paunchy Adolf Hitler, Stephanie Convery writes for UK…
Visiting New Zealand’s Oldest City Dunedin
“Dunedin has long had a reputation in New Zealand as the country’s avant garde student haven, a gritty post-industrial city now home to artists, musicians, academics and more than a handful of eccentrics. Odd…
New Zealand Gave a Home and Hope to Abbas Nazari
Abbas Nazari was stranded on a ship in the Indian Ocean when he first heard the words “New Zealand”, Dunedin-based journalist Eleanor Ainge Roy writes for UK newspaper, The Guardian. Then aged seven, Nazari’s mother,…
Drilling Down Into Mine Culture With Simon Denny
What does a tiny, nearly extinct bird with a sweet song have to do with the labour practices of a monolithic global corporation? Everything, New Zealand artist Simon Denny tells Stephanie Convery who writes…
Cabaret Performer Sophie Koh at Centre Stage
Profoundly inclusive and spectacularly eclectic, cabaret is what ‘theatre could have been if it hadn’t started building walls’. “Growing up, I never saw anyone who looked like me in the arts industry,” New Zealand-born…
Alan Wendt on Job as PM’s Sign Language Interpreter
Alan Wendt is the first interpreter to be regularly employed by a New Zealand prime minister – and he has had a busy year, according to Dunedin-based journalist Eleanor Ainge Roy, who interviews Wendt…
Latest Alan Broadbent Trio Album Well-Received
“When listening to , you may imagine that your ears have become just a little sharper. That’s how hearing Alan Broadbent’s piano playing often strikes me anyway,” UK jazz critic Dave Gelly…
Te Papa’s Te Taiao Nature an Urgent Call to Action
Dunedin-based Guardian journalist Eleanor Ainge Roy writes on Te Papa’s biggest development since its inception 21 years ago, the result of the largest ever investment in a museum exhibition in the country. Te Taiao…
Kowtow’s Gosia Piatek Doing Things Differently
Some designers are doing things differently: rethinking the business model and coming up with better ways of doing things, like Kowtow founder, New Zealander Gosia Piatek, who The Guardian’s Alexandra Spring features in an…
Campaigners Demand Justice for Blair Peach
Campaigners are demanding a fresh inquiry into the death of New Zealand-born protester Blair Peach during a demonstration held to prevent the National Front (NF) holding a meeting in Southall, west London, 40 years…
JP Pomare’s Debut Rated Highly by The Guardian
“Excellent characterisation and the ability to conjure cliquey, insecure adolescent world … add up to an immersive and exciting read,” Laura Wilson writes in a review of New Zealand author JP Pomare’s debut…
Aldous Harding’s Designer Dances on Different Feet
Aldous Harding is happy that her music makes people feel uncertain. The New Zealand-born singer-songwriter recalls a special moment when somebody confessed to her that Designer, Harding’s third record, made them question their taste. “That…
New Zealanders Flock to Live in the Regions
Auckland is the seventh most expensive city in the world to buy a home, and all three of New Zealand’s major cities are considered “severely unaffordable” by the latest Demographia international housing affordability survey….
Egg Shortage as Farmers Scramble to Go Free-Range
New Zealand is in the grip of an egg shortage as the industry undergoes a massive period of disruption while it transitions to free-range farming. The Guardian reports. The shortage has also been caused by…
Sarah Mary Chadwick’s Latest is Otherworldly
“The mix of New Zealand-born singer agony and the hope of the organ she’s playing makes for a compelling listen,” according to Kory Grow in a review of Chadwick’s new song,…
Record-Breaking Breeding Season for the Kākāpō
The world’s fattest species of parrot, the kākāpō, has had a record-breaking breeding season in New Zealand, with scientists saying the fortunes of the critically-endangered bird are finally turning around. There are only 147 adult…
PM Jacinda Ardern Discusses Global Scrutiny
Optimism is baked into Jacinda Ardern’s character, Spinoff editor Toby Manhire writes in a feature about the prime minister published in The Guardian. At school, her mother once revealed, she convened a “happy club”….
What We Do In The Shadows “Has Bite”
“Taika Waititi’s cult mockumentary has arisen on the small screen with the same mix of gravity-defying slapstick and endlessly amusing squabbles,” writes Charles Bramesco in a review for The Guardian.…
Why Other Politicians Fall Short Of Jacinda Ardern
“When doing my fieldwork with Christian Lebanese fighters in the middle of the Lebanese civil war, I witnessed a conversation concerning what to do with prisoners captured following a successful overrunning of a Palestinian…
Kahurangi National Park Gets Bigger
Kahurangi National Park, situated in the north-west corner of the South Island, the second-largest national park in the country, has expanded by 14 per cent, roughly half the size of Auckland. More than 64,000ha of…
Warren Gatland’s Wales Reflect Image of Its Leader
“For all his success in his coaching career, Warren Gatland is no José Mourinho peering into the mirror all the time and trading on past glories. He looks ahead rather than back, plotting the…
Margot Henderson’s Recipe for Bacon-and-Egg Pie
“This pie feels as if it is too simple to work – but it does and very easily,” according to London-based chef and caterer Margot Henderson, who dishes up her bacon-and-egg-pie recipe to Guardian…
Queenstown Considers Tourist Levy
In order to cope with large numbers of holidaymakers, New Zealand’s ‘adventure capital’ Queenstown proposes to charge international tourists a $7.50 fee for the privilege of visiting the area. Queenstown, situated in the picturesque Southern…
Canoeing a Living Entity in New Zealand
“The Whanganui is so important in Māori culture it has the legal rights of a person. A canoe trip along its forested valley proves a great way of getting to know it,” writes…
