Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website. 

Rebecca Stevenson: The rise and fall of CricHQ, the star-backed ‘Facebook for cricket’

With Stephen Fleming and Brendon McCullum among its founders, CricHQ capitalised on global interest in both cricket and cloud-based internet startups. It attracted a star-studded lineup of investors and seemed hugely successful, at one point boasting that it could bring in as much as US $10 billion. Then, in October, it went into receivership. Rebecca Stevenson investigates CricHQ’s downfall.

Toby Manhire: Who will replace Bill English? The contenders for next National leader, power ranked

“Bill English is leaving the National leadership and leaving parliament.

That departure triggers a period of intense electioneering within the National caucus – unlike the expansive processes in Labour and the Greens, for example, only National MPs get to vote on their leader. Who is likely to be in the frame to take on the task of opposition boss? Below, our runners and riders – as things develop we’ll add a tick to those who have declared themselves in the race, and a cross by those who have ruled themselves out.”

Duncan Greive: Bill English and the end of an overlong era

“John Key. Mike Hosking. Bill English. In late 2016, little more than a year ago, this was New Zealand’s power structure: the two most powerful politicians, and the broadcaster who backed them to the hilt.

Today all have resigned from their most prominent and influential roles, and the sense of a generational change becomes inexorable. Millennials and Gen Xers – who have for so long watched older New Zealanders own power and culture in a reign which felt endless – have enacted a frighteningly swift coup.”

Asher Emanuel: Selling influence: meet the lobbyists shaping New Zealand politics for a fee

“Jones is the New Zealand director of Hawker Britton, an Australian-based firm which lobbies Labo(u)r administrations in both countries.

Raeburn is the New Zealand Director of Barton Deakin, an essentially identical firm but which lobbies only National Party/Liberal Party administrations.

They’ve spent their careers working for opposing political camps, and still only engage with their former employers, but they share more than a vocation — they’re ultimately employed by the same multinational.”

Elle Hunt: How Lorde and Jack Antonoff changed pop music

“The Grammys tend to recognise legacy or commercial success, and though it had been well received by critics, and appeared at the top of the Billboard album charts in its first week, Lorde’s sophomore album had not exactly set the charts on fire (it came in at 114 on Billboard‘s year-end chart). ‘Green Light’ was the best-performing of its three singles, peaking at 19 on the Billboard Hot 100. By comparison, among the five singles of Bruno Mars’ winning 24K Magic was his seventh number one.

Ella Yelich-O’Connor, already a two-time Grammy winner at 21 years old, seemed magnanimous in defeat, conspicuously swigging from a hip flask and tweeting about meeting Cardi B and “Prez” Jay-Z. She didn’t win another Grammy, but she hadn’t needed to. She’d already won pop music.”

Hussein Moses: Meet the shade-throwing Wellington band who knocked Ed Sheeran off number one

“New Zealand musicians and the people that write about them haven’t always seen eye to eye. Duncan Greive, the managing editor of this very website, can attest to that. I can, too. It’s also not the first time a local artist has taken aim at Sweetman for something he wrote. Rap producer P-Money refused to be interviewed by Sweetman for his first book On Song: Stories Behind New Zealand’s Pop Classics. Then in 2012, Autozamm – sick of being criticised for the $200,000 in funding they received from NZ On Air – “decided to make an example of him on behalf of every other fucking band in the country” by releasing a song called ‘The Review’. The track was accompanied by a since-vanished music video that mocked the controversial writer. (This review that ran on The Corner sums it up pretty well.)”

Duncan Greive: MAFS Australia is bloated, bizarre and sometimes brilliant

“These first two episodes span 205 minutes and four of the eleven couples, with the show scheduled to run, at 90 minutes an episode, four nights a week. Which is to say that our commitment to these couples is in many cases greater than theirs to one another. It’s a marathon, exhausting and occasionally rewarding, but characters like Dean and Sarah make it one worth starting. Making it to the end will require a whole lot more dewy eyes and drama, which the loud, unselfconscious Australian temperament seems likely to provide.”

Jai Breitnauer: ECE isn’t free: How my family saves $8,000 a year

“My youngest son went back to school today and, like many other parents, I breathed just a little sigh of relief. Not relief that my kids won’t be at home with me. No! I’m not a heartless witch, and I’ve quite enjoyed the summer break. The relief is that school is free.

Sure, you’ve got the ‘donation’, which is being phased out anyway. And you’ve got the cost of trips and stationery. But that will cost us well under $1000 for two children in full time education this year, while Early Childhood Education cost us over $5000 a year just for one. Read it and weep, people: five whole grand. That means we are approximately $8000 better off each year with both our kids in school – and thanking our lucky stars that both children didn’t go to kindy at the same time.”

Rebecca Stevenson: Ten numbers that tell the story of Fletcher Building’s astounding $660m loss

Fletcher. The name is synonymous with construction and building in New Zealand, and has been since, well, forever. But it’s been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately – here are ten numbers that sum up the company’s bad news streak.

This section is made possible by Simplicity, the online nonprofit KiwiSaver plan that only charges members what it costs, nothing more. Simplicity is New Zealand’s fastest growing KiwiSaver scheme, saving its 10,500 plus investors more than $3.5 million annually. Simplicity donates 15% of management revenue to charity and has no investments in tobacco, nuclear weapons or landmines. It takes two minutes to join.

Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website.

Jacinda Ardern: ‘I want to be able to tell my child I have earned the right to stand here

“And if we value that about ourselves as a nation 364 days of the year, why would we not value it here at Waitangi. I will always maintain that we should not seek perfection on our national day. That speaking frankly and openly is not a sign of failure, but a sign of the health of our nation and a sign that we must keep pushing to be better. I also hope that my child will know that we have the power to change and we must change. A kaumatua spoke about the differences between these two whares on these grounds, and if you ask me the distance between this whare and the old homestead is the difference between us as people, the inequality we still have.”

Charles Anderson: The most badass photograph ever taken in New Zealand

“The Nelson Provincial Museum describes it thus: ‘Full length outdoor portrait of 17 men outside a hut in the bush in theatrical poses depicting leisure activities. Props include boxing gloves, a button accordion, a mandolin, a penny whistle, Truth newspaper, alcohol, and a shotgun. One of the men appears to cut the hair of another.’

I took a photograph of that photograph and stored it away as a curiosity. But it stuck with me.”

Christopher Penk: Labour ministers are bending the branches of government to breaking point

Early moves by members of the new cabinet risk doing real damage to New Zealand’s constitutional framework, argues National MP Chris Penk.

Keri Welham: Faded dream: Is boomtown Tauranga a bust?

“The mass migration has ended. Gone are the convoys of removal vans thundering down the Southern Motorway, and the scenes of Aucklander vs Aucklander vs Aucklander mayhem in Tauranga auction rooms. Gone too, as a result of the feeding frenzy over Tauranga real estate, is any semblance of home affordability in this city by the sea.”

Alex Casey and Duncan Greive: Ten thoughts about the brand new Seven Sharp

“‘It’s lovely to be with you tonight,’ said Hilary. I believed her. I believed her all the way to the back of her craft beer fridge, and all the way to the bottom of that pile of bargain Whopper burgers she bought on Twitter that time. Jeremy, on the other hand, had a distance behind the eyes like an alien in Men in Black that’s trying to pass as a functioning member of society. It was especially ripe whenever we returned to the studio after a segment. Hello darkness me old comrade, we meet again.”

Madeleine Chapman: Andrew Steel and the mystery of the vanishing consent campaign

“As more women joined the discussion, many noticed that negative comments were being deleted. By the end of the night, Steel had removed the suggestion to tag in your favourite brands. Fashion Quarterly, who had promoted Steel’s work with a glowing endorsement of the cause, deleted their post soon after. The next day, Steel’s original post was removed. As of writing, the link to the website for the work leads to a blank page. Andrew Steel’s personal website is also blank. Any negative comments about ‘Safe From Harm’ or Steel himself on previous Instagram posts have been regularly deleted.”

Toby Manhire and Duncan Greive: Bob Jones and NBR divorce over ‘Māori Gratitude Day’ column

“A senior source at the NBR told the Spinoff the controversial passage was ‘part of a wider column which was clearly satire’, but it caused ‘misgivings’ among staff. The source said that had it been ‘one piece, just on that topic’ the NBR would not have run it. Editors had, however,  ‘listened to feedback and responded’, and now regarded its publication as an ‘error of judgement’.

In what appears to be a different version of events to Jones’ statement that ‘I shan’t bother writing any more for NBR’, the source at the publication said the decision to terminate the column was made at its end, and communicated with Jones in a telephone conversation.

A separate NBR source told the Spinoff that ‘Approximately 100% of NBR editorial staff’ would approve of the column’s discontinuation.”

Miriama Kamo: Stop praising Māori for ‘behaving’ at Waitangi this year

“It is not for Māori to behave to make anyone feel better about justified and reasonable demands for equity. The onus is not on Māori to smooth the path for others to come into their home; a home that has been, figuratively and literally, systematically dismantled and destroyed over decades. Labour too has a lot of ground to make up, so it’s good that Jacinda Ardern spoke with verve and hope for a more equitable partnership. Her warm reception reflects the historic grassroots support by many Māori for the party, the ongoing excitement around the prime minister’s leadership, but also her pregnancy. New life is sacred, protest would have felt awkward in what is still a honeymoon period for Labour. The absence of significant protest honoured that new life.

But it did not signal some supposed maturity on the part of Māori where they have seen the light, the error of their ways, or organised themselves to be better hosts to the Crown contingent.”

Eli Matthewson: Album Review: Justin Timberlake, Man Who Went Camping Once

“The promotional material in the lead-up to this album gave the impression Justin would be going back to his roots (he was born and raised in Tennessee), giving us the same folk/country schtick that went pretty poorly for both Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga. It seemed like it’d be the music equivalent of when a stand-up comedian does a show that focuses on ‘storytelling instead of jokes’. But Man of the Woods turns out to be the music equivalent of when a stand-up does the same old dick jokes, just more lazily than ever.”