Finally got to the end of season 2 of Juggernaut, show covers the 1990s National government, and from 1996, the first Nat-led coalition resulting from MMP elections;
https://thespinoff.co.nz/podcasts/juggernaut
The contrast between the sound bites from veteran economist Susan St John and from former finance minister Ruth Richardson couldn't be more stark.
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This week's edition of The Fold discusses the Oz ban on (some) social media companies allowing under-16s to access their platforms;
https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/02-12-2025/the-fold-australias-big-tech-revolution-rolls-on
On one level, I'm playing the world's smallest violin for the DataFarming platforms targeted. I'm also relieved that the ban doesn't seem to apply to fediverse services, and other not-for-profit online services that clearly could be put in the "social media" bucket if the politicians were so inclined.
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NZ got proportional representation elections, in the end, kind of by accident. With 1980s Labour PM David Lange misreading his notes and committing to it, and when Labour reneged, National leader Jim Bolger promised a referendum on it. Thinking kiwis would never vote for it.
Juggernaut talks about all this in s02e04;
https://www.thespinoff.co.nz/podcasts/juggernaut
What Juggernaut doesn't cover in any detail is the years of grassroots campaigning that preceded all this.
"... you have politics litigated on the platforms where young people are - everyone kind of is but particularly young people - and all the incentives of those platforms are to practice politics as this kind of bombthrowing exercise. Where the ... policy outcomes and how it might ultimately reach you feel a long way down the list, if they're on it at all."
#DuncanGreive, 2025
https://thespinoff.co.nz/podcasts/the-fold
They're not. The Algorithms do not care about policy.
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"There's no god given right for a major party to stay a major party. You have to earn that."
#HelenClark, 2025
https://thespinoff.co.nz/podcasts/juggernaut
You listening to your former leader Labour? If you don't step up next year - much more ambitiously than in 2020-23 - you've earned exactly what will follow.
"Now what happens to Winston Peters doesn't matter. But what happens to the people does."
#WinstonPeters, Juggernaut 2, ep 2, 2025
https://thespinoff.co.nz/podcasts/juggernaut
It's hard to believe now given the smiling crocodile he's become. Political principles up for auction, doing whatever is best for Winston Peters and bugger anyone else. I think at the time he really meant this.
His corruption is perhaps the saddest political story of NZ corporatism.
"More than a million people are affected by the cuts. The worst hit are 20-24 year olds on the dole. Their benefit drops by 25%, to $108 a week. Adjusted for inflation, that would be about $235 in 2025.
Sickness beneficiaries under 25 lose 20% of their income, down to $130 a week. $282 in today's money."
#TobyManhire, 2025
https://thespinoff.co.nz/podcasts/juggernaut
Sound familiar? So far NatACT First have come for 100% of 18-19 year olds' dole. But ...
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Great, people know the police are headed by a bunch of untrustworthy bastards. Palmer suggests the PM needs to be involved the the necessary radical reforms.
Meanwhile the PM is actually saying... we'll lock up as many people as the Police tell us to, cost no object. Not questioning whether the lying bastards can be trusted at all. FFS, the evidence so far shows one malicious prosecution of a whistleblower. How many more exist?
I presume anyone who wants to understand NZ politics has listened to The Spinoff's Juggernaut podcast, about the 1984-90 Labour government. But did you catch up with the fact that the second season of Juggernaut is out, telling the story of the 1990s National government?
https://thespinoff.co.nz/podcasts/juggernaut
The first 3 episodes are out now.
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Meet the people keeping the magic of DVDs alive in the streaming age
Some of the government’s earliest decisions are coming back to bite it
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/03-10-2025/hindsight-is-2020-and-that-was-five-years-ago
"... I used to study medicine, I was training to be a doctor. But I couldn't actually afford my rent because it was London, so I had to work in marketing on the side. Then I started to really get into marketing to the point where I actually left medicine ..."
#AndrewTindall, System1, 2025
https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/02-09-2025/the-fold-myths-and-truths-in-modern-advertising
His job could have been saving people's lives, but instead it's persuading them they want stuff. That's heartbreaking.
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Fonterra’s sale of Anchor, Mainland and Kāpiti to a French dairy giant, explained
This is the piece of journalism on the Fonterra sale I have been waiting for.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/kai/04-09-2025/fonterras-sale-of-anchor-mainland-and-kapiti-to-a-french-dairy-giant-explained
#TheSpinoff #NZ #Fonterra #Lactalis #Dairy #Food
Why the Labour-National stalemate is leaving voters looking elsewhere
<<Campbell jokes that there have been “more sightings of Elvis than of significant new Labour Party policy”>>
I would also like to apologise for Ray Chung. As I'm sure would many of you.
I'm very sorry and I'll try much harder in future to avoid Ray Chungs and anything like him.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/15-07-2025/ray-chung-gets-a-woman-to-apologise-for-him
The shocking truth behind the death of Jaffas – a Spinoff investigation
This is such a good piece:
#Rate rises are due to people voting against rates rises | #TheSpinoff
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/10-07-2025/rates-rises-are-due-to-people-voting-against-rates-rises
#nzpol #wellington #localgovt
Meet the kaiāwhina who volunteer to keep protesters safe
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/17-05-2025/meet-the-kaiawhina-who-volunteer-to-keep-protesters-safe
The mystery of the Goldie AI reproductions hanging in a Christchurch restaurant / Liam Rātana
April 27 is Moehanga Day, the anniversary of the day in 1806 when Ngāpuhi warrior Moehanga became the first Māori to visit England.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/26-04-2025/the-maori-who-discovered-europe
