Dressed In Art
World of Wearable Arts founder Suzie Moncrieff, 60, was a single mother on the DPB and a struggling sculptor when she decided she wanted to “take the art down off the walls” of her…
Tag Archives: Age (The)
Living with Fur
New Zealand researchers, including Professor Malcolm Sear of the University of Otago, have found those who lived with dogs and cats for significant periods of time were less likely to develop allergies, compared with…
Tasman Union Imminent
Flights between New Zealand and Australia will soon be as cheap as domestic flights under new efforts to streamline trans-Tasman travel. Following talks between New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and Australian Prime Minister…
Bedroom Dealings
Westport couple Wayne Saggers and Kathy Wahrlich sold their bed and threw in six-bedroom historic Stone House in an online auction on TradeMe for $302,600 to an Aucklander named, Mike. The package, which had…
Taking the mickey
The Age finds literal mirth in New Zealand’s “quirky” place names travelling from the North Island town of Waipu, through several of the “whaka-” and on to Shag River, Pigroot and Cape Foulwind. “Also…
Sunshine’s sisters
Auckland film maker Christine Jeffs created the independent feature Sunshine Cleaning with sisters in mind, and being one herself, Jeffs told The Age, she wanted to explore the dynamics between older and younger siblings….
Decade of purity
The 100 per cent pure New Zealand campaign is celebrating a decade in business and a decade promoting the “essence” of this country. Well, if New Zealanders can do it then why not the…
King of the Derby
New Zealand jockey Larry Cassidy rode New Plymouth trainer John Wheeler’s Court Ruler to victory in the $500,000 Queensland Derby at Eagle Farm. Wheeler won his first Derby with his champion Rough Habit in…
Sheep jokes abate
Trans-Tasman relationships have warmed in recent times with Australia becoming “far more inclusive” of New Zealand, “no longer pretending we’re not really here” according to the head of the New Zealand Australia Research Centre…
Safe Haven for Seals
Kaikoura is the first place in New Zealand, and the second in the world, to be Green Globe benchmarked, an international benchmarking and certification program developed for the travel industry in 1992. Kaikoura was…
Contemporary Christchurch
New Zealand’s oldest city Christchurch is more than punting on the Avon and Octagon wizardry, and boasts plenty to do for the intrepid, including tram, Segway and Antarctica tours, a visit to Fred and…
Changing fiction
18 April 2009 – Auckland-based author Witi Ihimaera, 65, is in the process of reworking earlier fiction saying that “as the author grows, so should their stories.” “Writers should be able to transform their…
Vying for the ultimate
Radio host and television personality Clarke Gayford is one of 16 finalists for the ‘Best Job in the World’ organised by Tourism Queensland. Queensland Tourism Minister Peter Lawlor on Friday telephoned 15 finalists across…
Pass the Wallaby
The increasingly ubiquitous wallaby may be the newest presence on the New Zealand dinner table, as municipalities around the country are being encouraged to consider different strategies to control their booming populations. The Australian marsupials…
High on the Piste
Jane Peak is on a remote station in the Southern Alps accessible only by helicopter and “just begging for a beating” in the ski season when the slopes are “covered in fresh, untracked powder”,…
Not Quite the End
When Tim Finn and Split Enz supported Skyhooks and AC/DC at Sydney’s Festival Hall in 1975, they were booed at by teenager Magda Szubanski. “Years later, Magda admitted that she was booing us —…
Broadened Horizons
Twenty-four per cent of New Zealanders with tertiary education live abroad, the highest rate in the OECD, according to research conducted by the University of Waikato management school. The study, led by the University’s…
A Vision in Ribbons
Auckland ballerina 16-year-old Hannah O’Neill — who recently won first prize at the Prix de Lausanne in Switzerland — is in her second year at the Australian Ballet School and “has a luminous quality…
Australasian Citizenship
Wellington-born David Kirk, former All Black captain and chief executive of Fairfax, is now an Australian citizen. Kirk, skipper of the World Cup winners in the inaugural 1987 tournament, confirmed he would always…
Killer Waves
A New Zealand man spent one recent Saturday surfing alongside three orcas near a beach on the Taranaki coast, enjoying the perfect waves. Craig Hunter, who has been surfing off the North Island for…
Revolution in the Wananga
Maori educator and chairman of tertiary institution Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi Professor Graham Hingangaroa Smith was a key speaker at the World Indigenous People’s Education Conference in Melbourne held in early December. A…
Triumph for the Ferns
The Silver Ferns have won the deciding netball test against England 61-22 in the best of three series final in Palmerston North. Both teams came out firing on Saturday night but it was the…
On your marks, get set
Artist Daniel Crooks, who originally hails from Hastings, has won the Australian inaugural $100,000, Basil Sellers Art Prize for ‘Static no. 11 (man running)’, a computer-modified video of champion athlete Christopher Brown sprinting on…
Williamstown Whakaeke
Nga Manu Waiata are in dress rehearsal for the Australian national kapa haka competition – the group representative of 110,000 Maori who have made Australia their home. Thomas Rangihuna steps forward and welcomes everyone….
Synthesised on Flying Nun
Lead singer of Wellington band the Phoenix Foundation, Samuel Flynn Scott released his debut album The Hunt Brings Us Life in 2006 but continues to work with the Foundation which recently promoted their latest…
Big Red Mystery Solved
Renowned New Zealand-bred gelding Phar Lap, who won 37 of his 51 starts and the 1930 Melbourne Cup was killed by arsenic poisoning in 1932, scientists have confirmed after decades of speculation. A handwritten…
Union Man’s Aria
Christchurch-born singer Max Merritt, who fronted Max Merritt and the Meteors, will be inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame alongside New Zealand band Dragon. “I didn’t expect it – it was an incredible…
Trade Relationship Anniversary
In 1983, New Zealand and Australia signed the Closer Economic Relations trade pact, and this year, on the 25th anniversary of the agreement, chief economist of the Australian Trade Commission Tim Harcourt reflects on…
Wilson pitches the unpitchable
Christchurch comedian Cal Wilson is part of this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival, performing on March 29 in Axed! The show is billed as “stories of the unpitchable, unprintable and unwatchable” and the…
Laureate discovers
Wellington poet Bill Manhire is profiled in The Age as a man who quite accidentally fell upon letters, who secretly wrote at school until he read Walt Whitman in his final year at school….
Budding Swim Star
Te Haumi Maxwell, 13, has been hailed as the “best male swimming prospect since Ian Thorpe” in the Australian press. Maxwell was born in NZ but raised in Australia, and is due to become…
Kohanga Reo Movement Continues to Inspire
NZ’s thriving kohanga reo movement was the subject of a lengthy Age feature last month. Kohanga reo, or Maori language and cultural immersion schools, have blossomed since the movement’s launch in 1980. There are…
From death row to Don Giovanni
Star NZ baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes has shown his versatility in an impressive series of Australian opera roles this year. In August, Tahu Rhodes played construction worker Stanley Kowalski in the Australian premiere of…
Tales from a Conflict Zone
NZ nurse Lisa French Blaker has written a book about working for the aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) in Sudan. In Heart of Darfur (Hodder & Stoughton), French Blaker, 36, recounts…
Cosmic pop
One-woman Christchurch act Bachelorette is winning over Australian audiences with her “beautifully odd, inter-planetary pop”. Annabel Alpers is currently touring Australia with her new album, Isolation Loops, which she recorded in a remote wooden…
Finding beauty in the everyday
Six NZ ceramic artists, including the collaborative couple Philip Jarvis and Madeleine Child, are exhibiting together at the annual Craft Victoria festival in Melbourne. Titled Best in Show, the exhibition is a playful tribute…
An actor’s dream
Actor Casey Afleck described NZ-born director Andrew Dominick as a “genius” while promoting Dominick’s new film, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. “Someone said: ‘The man who made Chopper…
Posthumous gem
The Janet Frame Literary Trust has posthumously published a novella written by the great NZ author in 1963. Dismissed by Frame as “embarrassingly personal”, Towards Another Summer is about a homesick NZ writer who…
Trans-Tasman Netball Goes Semi-professional
A new trans-Tasman netball tournament will be launched in April next year, bringing together five teams each from NZ and Australia. The Tasman Trophy has secured ANZ Bank as its naming rights sponsor, and will screen…
Influential Exports
Two New Zealanders made The Bulletin‘s annual list of the 50 most influential businesspeople in Australia. Fairfax Media Chief Executive David Kirk is ranked fifteenth on the list. The former All Black Captain has headed the publishing…
Debuts, Divas and Dark Designs
Wellington writer Carolyn Enting provided an overview of Air New Zealand Fashion Week 2007 for the Melbourne Age. Highlights of the week included impressive debuts by Alex Kim and Alexandra Owen, a media stampede…
Senior Iraqi Posting for Shearer
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has named New Zealander David Shearer as his deputy special representative for Iraq. Shearer will also serve as Iraq’s UN resident coordinator and humanitarian coordinator. “David’s a pretty special guy. He’s hugely regarded…
LonelyGirl signs off
NZ internet sensation Jessica Lee Rose has ended her starring role on the hit web drama LonelyGirl15. Rose’s character, Bree, was killed off by a sinister religious cult known as The Order, ending her…
Tech Blogger’s Global Reach
Lower Hutt is home to the world’s 28th most popular blog. Richard MacManus’s Read/Write Web, a social networking site devoted to Web 2.0 issues, receives around 25,000 page views a day. “It takes a lot…
Balibo Deaths Back in Spotlight
The 1975 deaths of two Australian, two British and a New Zealand journalist in Balibo, East Timor, are back in the political spotlight after a Sydney inquest found conclusive evidence of deliberate murder and…
Web celeb Rose turns to cinema
NZ actress Jessica Rose – who found fame on YouTube as lonelygirl15 – has made her first foray into Hollywood, starring alongside tabloid queen Lindsay Lohan in the psychological thriller I Know…
Something Good Comes from Possums
Scientists at NZ’s AgResearch and Otago Medical School may have found the cure for a common prostate problem and it is largely thanks to NZ’s no.1 environmental pest: the brush-tailed possum. According to a study published…
Capping Off a Great Year
Following their seven-try, record-breaking victory last week against the French in Lyon, the All Blacks continued their run of success in Paris against the host nation at the Stade de France. Despite the French side showing…
The Money’s on Efficient
NZ-bred horse Efficient has been dubbed “racing’s next big thing” in the Australian press after winning the AU$1.5 million Victoria Derby at Flemington. The three-year-old gelding’s win earned him the right to enter the Melbourne…
Queen Mourned, King Crowned
The Maori Queen, Dame Te Atairangikaahu died on Tuesday 15 August aged 75 after a 40-year reign. Dame Te Atairangikaahu was the sixth monarch of the North Island tribes who formed the King movement…
Moko Takes to US Streets
The sale of Maori themed Halloween costumes by an American store has angered Maori leaders. Halloween Town in Los Angeles is advertising the Maori Facial Tattoo Kit for $US10. Rotorua academic Ngahihi o te ra…
Fonterra Gets Bigger
NZ dairy giant Fonterra has established a strong foothold in Australia’s eastern states thanks to a crucial new partnership with Lismore-based co-op, Norco. Under the agreement, Norco will provide the manufacturing facilities and supply milk to the…
Pride of the Asia-Pacific
Sam Neill is the inaugural subject of Peschardt’s People, a 13-part BBC series hosted by veteran foreign correspondent Michael Peschardt. The series aims to introduce global viewers to “some of the most famous…
Dusty Down Under
Already triple platinum in NZ, Bic Runga’s third album – Birds – is now making waves across the Tasman. The Age: “Dark and majestic… is without a doubt Runga’s best album -…
Buy-now Price $700 Million
John Fairfax Holdings has bought New Zealand internet auction site Trade Me for $700 million. What started as one young Wellingtonian looking to buy a second-hand heater to warm his drafty Mount Victoria flat in…
Roast with the most
Edge establishment Batch Espresso is cutting it in Melbourne’s razor-like café scene, with more stellar reviews in the city’s leading newspapers. Herald Sun: ” works the coffee machine and the room, making…
