News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Manaakitanga Behind Our Strong Covid Response

Manaakitanga Behind Our Strong Covid Response

There is a deeper reason why New Zealand has “fared so much better”, than say, the United States in combatting Covid-19, and it’s manaakitanga, according to New Zealanders Matthew Milner and Richard Ngata, who…

Victorian Government Appoints Sir David Carruthers

Victorian Government Appoints Sir David Carruthers

Former chair of the New Zealand Independent Police Conduct Authority and judge of New Zealand family and youth courts, Sir David Carruthers, has been appointed by the Victorian government to oversee the implementation of…

What If the UK Had Shut as Quickly as NZ?

What If the UK Had Shut as Quickly as NZ?

“The UK’s physical isolation sets it apart from its continental neighbours, but could its island status have protected it from the full horror of Covid-19, had it closed borders in early 2020, as New…

New Zealanders in Wintry Berlin Cope with Covid

New Zealanders in Wintry Berlin Cope with Covid

Artist Ruth Buchanan is one of a number of New Zealanders “holed up” in Berlin, “in the middle of a long, dreary Covid winter”. Former DJ Emma Jean Gilkson, writing for The Spinoff, is…

German Publication Has High Praise for PM

German Publication Has High Praise for PM

For its January 2021 issue, the German magazine View has declared Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern the “best politician in the world” and features the 39-year-old on the cover, with the words: “She defeated coronavirus…

Trapped in Museums for Centuries, Maori Ancestors Are Coming Home

Trapped in Museums for Centuries, Maori Ancestors Are Coming Home

Writing for Atlas Obscura, Ye Charlotte Ming has taken an in-depth look at the ongoing process of repatriation of Maori remains from international museums, quoting poet and musician Hinemoana Baker, researcher Amber Aranui and…

Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta Charts a Course

Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta Charts a Course

The first Māori woman to be foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta is an experienced lawmaker known for her deep roots in Māori tribal diplomacy, Charlotte Graham-McLay writes for The Washington Post. Mahuta has her work…

Our Covid Response the Best of a Bad Year

Our Covid Response the Best of a Bad Year

Covid may have made 2020 a year to forget, but amid the gloom there were plenty of positive moments, with countries like New Zealand and led by women having “systematically and significantly better” Covid-19…

Time to Reimagine Symbols of Identity

Time to Reimagine Symbols of Identity

“What’s with those jandals, hokey pokey ice-creams, buzzy bees, Swanndris and gumboots? Far from being random and unrelated objects, these icons of so-called Kiwiana tell a story of late 20th-century nostalgia at a moment…

Manukura a Blessing and a Unifying Symbol

Manukura a Blessing and a Unifying Symbol

Manukura, a rare, snow-white kiwi that inspired a children’s book and was the first of its kind ever hatched in captivity has died at the Pūkaha National Wildlife Centre after multiple surgeries to remove…

Learning Te Reo Māori Is Where It’s At

Learning Te Reo Māori Is Where It’s At

New Zealanders of all stripes are signing up to learn te reo Māori, according to Amy Gunia reporting for TIME magazine. Gunia writes that experts say over the last five or so years, the…

US TV Host Stephen Colbert Revisits 2019 NZ Trip

US TV Host Stephen Colbert Revisits 2019 NZ Trip

Stephen Colbert, host of US television’s The Late Show, has shared footage from his 2019 travels to New Zealand on a recent episode, including a Lord of the Rings-themed adventure and bungee jumping off a…

Kiwi YouTube gaming comedy trio levels up

Kiwi YouTube gaming comedy trio levels up

New Zealand-based YouTube comedy trio Viva La Dirt League – which is behind popular video game skit series like Epic NPC Man and Game Logic – has signed with Creative Artists…

Unilever NZ to follow lead of Perpetual Guardian to Trial 4-day Work Week

Unilever NZ to follow lead of Perpetual Guardian to Trial 4-day Work Week

Unilever New Zealand will be trialling a four day workweek for one year, representing a fundamental change in the way the company views their workforce, reports Azi Paybarah for The New York Times. All 81…

Harvard Activist Award for PM Jacinda Ardern

Harvard Activist Award for PM Jacinda Ardern

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has received a Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership Gleitsman International Activist Award, which was presented at a virtual ceremony on 1 December. According to the Harvard Kennedy School, the…

Turn Disappointments of 2020 into Forest of Hope

Turn Disappointments of 2020 into Forest of Hope

To say 2020 has been a year full of disappointments is an understatement, but New Zealand is hoping to inspire some positivity for this coming year with its Forest of Hope campaign, Jessica Poitevien…

Haere Rā Midnight Oil Bassist Bones Hillman

Haere Rā Midnight Oil Bassist Bones Hillman

Midnight Oil’s bassist and backing vocalist, New Zealand-born Bones (Wayne) Hillman has died in Milwaukee in the US at the age of 62. His fellow band members said they were “grieving the loss of our…

New Zealand emerges as global leader and “beacon of light” in era of Covid-19

New Zealand emerges as global leader and “beacon of light” in era of Covid-19

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, New Zealand has emerged as a global leader. However there’s more to this leadership than New Zealand’s efforts in developing a world-renowned best-practice pandemic response, says London-based…

Nanaia Mahuta “blazes new trails” as foreign minister

Nanaia Mahuta “blazes new trails” as foreign minister

Nanaia Mahuta entered New Zealand’s Parliament as the youngest Maori woman to ever gain a seat. More than two decades later, she has become the country’s minister of foreign affairs, another trailblazing first. Ms…

Kākāpō Claims 2020 Bird of the Year Victory

Kākāpō Claims 2020 Bird of the Year Victory

The esteemed kākāpō has soared past its competition to claim victory in New Zealand’s Bird of the Year contest, a tense race marked by attempted voter interference during a divisive month of campaigning, Jennifer Hassan…

Kai Ika Model for Reducing Hunger and Food Waste

Kai Ika Model for Reducing Hunger and Food Waste

Papatūānuku Kōkiri Marae has been distributing two tons of fish a week – the parts often discarded in commercial and recreational fishing – to families affected by New Zealand’s sputtering economy. Sam Woolford, founder…

Gender Pay Equity an Experiment for an Entire Society

Gender Pay Equity an Experiment for an Entire Society

“New Zealand is pursuing a century-old idea to close the gender pay gap: not equal pay for equal work, but equal pay for work of equal value,” American journalist Anna Louie Sussman writes in…

Auckland on World’s Best Covid-era Cities List

Auckland on World’s Best Covid-era Cities List

Auckland is among the top 100 cities in the world to live in or visit during the Covid-19 era, according to a new Resonance Consultancy global ranking. The annual best cities report ranked cities with…

Bill Gosden Lived and Breathed Film

Bill Gosden Lived and Breathed Film

Bill Gosden, who served as director of the New Zealand International Film Festival for nearly 40 years, has died in Wellington. He was 66. Mike Barnes looks back on Gosden’s illustrious career for The Hollywood…

New Zealand Inc Reaps Benefit of Lockdown Response

New Zealand Inc Reaps Benefit of Lockdown Response

When Covid-19 struck New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern’s government quickly closed the nation’s borders and imposed one of the world’s strictest lockdowns in a bid to eliminate the spread of the virus. Jamie Smyth, a…

New Zealand’s Political Debates Show What Changes When Two Women Lead

New Zealand’s Political Debates Show What Changes When Two Women Lead

“New Zealand’s recent election, which ended up with an electoral landslide for the incumbent Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, says something about women in leadership roles. With the leaders of New Zealand’s two biggest parties…

John Reid a Cricket Player of Uncontested Standing

John Reid a Cricket Player of Uncontested Standing

“ John Reid, who has died aged 92, was in large part responsible for establishing New Zealand as a respected force in world cricket. A superb all-rounder who was the captain and mainstay of…

Berlin Museum Returns Toi Moko to New Zealand

Berlin Museum Returns Toi Moko to New Zealand

With a ceremony and prayers, Berlin’s ethnological museum has marked the official repatriation of two Toi Moko, or tattooed Māori heads, to the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington, Deutsche Welle…

Morrinsville’s World Famous Takeaway Worker

Morrinsville’s World Famous Takeaway Worker

It’s Friday night in the small town of Morrinsville and a handful of locals are waiting at the Golden Kiwi on the main street for a greasy parcel of fish and chips, Julia Hollingsworth…

King of Soul Max Merritt Will Be Greatly Missed

King of Soul Max Merritt Will Be Greatly Missed

Christchurch-born Max Merritt, the ARIA Hall of Fame inductee best known for his soulful songs “Slippin’ Away” and “Hey, Western Union Man”, has died in Los Angeles. He was 79. Merritt made his mark when…

Global Media Outlets React to Jacinda Ardern’s Win

Global Media Outlets React to Jacinda Ardern’s Win

Jacinda Ardern will serve a second term as New Zealand prime minister following Labour’s landslide victory in an election on 17 October, which delivered a major shift towards progressive parties, Jamie Smith reports for…

New Zealand Passport Takes Top Spot

New Zealand Passport Takes Top Spot

The Passport Index has named a new most powerful passport in the world, and it’s none other than: New Zealand. Stacey Leasca reports on how our passport allows travel to more countries than…

Mathematician Vaughan Jones a Man Who Knew Knots

Mathematician Vaughan Jones a Man Who Knew Knots

“In 1994, Gisborne-born mathematician Vaughan Jones walked on stage to address the Italian national academy in Rome’s Palazzo Corsini, lit a cigar and began to blow smoke rings. With a mischievous grin, he told…

OECD Nominee Liddell Helms White House Transition Planning

OECD Nominee Liddell Helms White House Transition Planning

Whoever wins the U.S. Presidential race – Trump or Biden – New Zealand-born Chris Liddell will be holding the keys to the front door of the White House in his role as head of…

PM Jacinda Ardern Runner Up in Prospect List

PM Jacinda Ardern Runner Up in Prospect List

The votes have been counted and the results are in. UK magazine Prospect’s top 10 is full of practical-minded thinkers for the Covid-19 age – and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has taken…

Labour’s Priyanca Radhakrishnan Proud of Roots

Labour’s Priyanca Radhakrishnan Proud of Roots

In an exclusive interview with Indian news magazine, The Week, Labour list MP Priyanca Radhakrishnan, 41, talks about how the New Zealand Government is handling the pandemic and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s chances of…

Queenstown Looks to Alternative Revenue

Queenstown Looks to Alternative Revenue

As the Covid-19 pandemic closes borders and grounds aircraft around the world, iconic destinations from Kyoto to Amsterdam are addressing the new reality of fewer visitors and looking for ways to reset their local…

Chlöe Swarbrick Makes Fortune’s 40-Under-40 List

Chlöe Swarbrick Makes Fortune’s 40-Under-40 List

In a year of “monumental challenges and change”, Fortune magazine has released its 40 Under 40 lists for 2020, the Government and Politics list of which features Aucklander Chlöe Swarbrick alongside iHeartMedia’s Jalisa Washington-Price…

Staggering Potential of NZ’s Returning Diaspora

Staggering Potential of NZ’s Returning Diaspora

International strategist and insights specialist Aucklander Julia Arnott-Neenee, 27, is one of a number of high achievers “coming home at once”. The Spinoff’s managing editor Duncan Greive interviews the well-travelled Arnott-Neenee, amongst other New…

“I forgive you: Why victims’ empathy was kryptonite to the Christchurch killer”

“I forgive you: Why victims’ empathy was kryptonite to the Christchurch killer”

Reflecting on four days of victim impact statements prior to the life-without-parole sentence of the Christchurch mosque killer, Sydney Morning Herald columnist and senior journalist Jacqueline Maley wrote “The more I listened, the…

Pete Oswald Skiing to Reforest Madagascar

Pete Oswald Skiing to Reforest Madagascar

New Zealand freeskier and photographer Pete Oswald, 35, speaks with Men’s Journal journalist Eliot Grover about his efforts to reforest Madagascar and alleviate poverty. This June, in a partnership with Eden Reforestation Projects, Oswald…

Though NZ Is Confronting a New Outbreak It Is Still Way Ahead of the USA – WashPost

Though NZ Is Confronting a New Outbreak It Is Still Way Ahead of the USA – WashPost

“Since the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic, New Zealand has drawn global attention for the effectiveness of its response,” associate professor of law at American University’s Washington College of Law Rebecca Hamilton writes…

Wellington Library Book Returned after 118 years

Wellington Library Book Returned after 118 years

A book has been returned to a Wellington library 118 years after it was checked out, Yahoo News Australia reports. The Earl of Derby by George Saintsbury was borrowed from the Newtown Library in…

New Zealand’s Glaciers Testament to Climate Change

New Zealand’s Glaciers Testament to Climate Change

New research has found extreme melting of New Zealand’s glaciers in 2018 was at least ten times more likely due to human-caused global heating, Graham Readfearn reports for The Guardian. Twice a year, glaciologist Lauren…

Lock Andy Haden Key Player in AB History

Lock Andy Haden Key Player in AB History

All Blacks lock Andy Haden, who “was an exceptionally talented, intelligent and resilient lock, among the best in the world in his era,” has died in Auckland, aged 69. The Japan Times has published an…

London Health Worker Natalie Scott a Free Sister

London Health Worker Natalie Scott a Free Sister

Clinical lead physiotherapist for critical care at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, New Zealander Natalie Scott, has received the Freedom of the City of London – a recognition awarded to people who have achieved success, recognition or celebrity…

New Zealand Grants Behrouz Boochani Refugee Status

New Zealand Grants Behrouz Boochani Refugee Status

Behrouz Boochani, 37, a Kurdish-Iranian refugee who wrote the award-winning book, No Friend But the Mountains on his mobile phone while held in one of Australia’s notorious Pacific detention camps, has been granted asylum…

Tim Dodd Appointed Dean of Texas Tech College of Human Sciences

Tim Dodd Appointed Dean of Texas Tech College of Human Sciences

After two years as acting and interim dean of Texas Tech University’s College of Human Sciences, New Zealander Tim Dodd is taking the reins in his own right, Fox 34 News reports. Dodd will…

How New Zealand Is Beating the Coronavirus Pandemic

How New Zealand Is Beating the Coronavirus Pandemic

“The United States is a pandemic-policy mess, and the whole world is watching the meltdown,” Markos Kounalakis writes for the Washington Monthly. “How did such a small place take on such…

Judith Collins Named National Party’s New Leader

Judith Collins Named National Party’s New Leader

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, widely known for her exhortations to kindness and compassion, will face Judith Collins – a combative, tough-talking conservative lawmaker who styled herself after Margaret Thatcher – in the country’s general…

How NZ Became an Apocalypse Escape Destination

How NZ Became an Apocalypse Escape Destination

In Queenstown – a picturesque ski spot that often attracts comparisons to Aspen, Colorado – rumours about foreigners investing in apocalypse-proof bunkers have been swirling for years, CNN correspondent Julia Hollingsworth writes. They’re referenced by…

World’s Newest Dark Sky Park Announced in NZ

World’s Newest Dark Sky Park Announced in NZ

New Zealand is quickly becoming one of the top dark sky destinations on earth, Valerie Stimac reports for Forbes, with the country home to two International Dark Sky Association (IDA) certified Dark Sky Sanctuaries –…

Helen Clark to co-Lead WHO COVID-19 Panel on Global Response, Future Prevention

Helen Clark to co-Lead WHO COVID-19 Panel on Global Response, Future Prevention

“Avowed multilateralists” New Zealander Helen Clark and Liberian politician Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will lead a World Health Organization (WHO) panel scrutinising the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic just as international institutions are under…

Todd Muller Plots Downfall of Jacinda Ardern

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,…

Housesitters Find a Community in COVID-19 NZ

Housesitters Find a Community in COVID-19 NZ

After struggling to find an affordable apartment in Nelson, a Canadian-New Zealand couple signed up to be housesitters, and ended up booking back-to-back sitting gigs for an entire year. But when COVID-19 began, Business…

New Zealand “the New Leader of the Free World”

New Zealand “the New Leader of the Free World”

“When I say ‘new leader of the free world’, I don’t just mean Jacinda Ardern. I mean New Zealand. As a society,” London-based consultant, leading thinker and author Umair Haque writes in a feature…