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Gone By Lunchtime (Image: Tina Tiller)
Gone By Lunchtime (Image: Tina Tiller)

PoliticsDecember 12, 2024

Gone By Lunchtime: A plan to have a plan about some ferries

Staff writers
Gone By Lunchtime (Image: Tina Tiller)
Gone By Lunchtime (Image: Tina Tiller)

Ready the lifeboats: the coalition boat appears to be listing.

Twelve months after the coalition government torpedoed the new ferry plan it had inherited, along with a wild cost blowout, from the previous government, a much heralded announcement finally arrived on Wednesday, and it provided plenty more questions that it did answers.

In a new episode of the Spinoff politics podcast Gone By Lunchtime, Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire gather on deck to check whether the autopilot has been properly disabled and assess this latest chapter in a long-running saga. What does the latest instalment in the great ferry saga tell us about the state of the coalition, with David Seymour getting publicly ticked off by the new minister for rail Winston Peters? What kind of ferries will we end up with? And will they ro-ro or won’t they ro-ro?

Plus: what does a glut of new polls tells us about the state of the government as we approach Christmas, and did Christopher Luxon fail to adhere to his own big rock philosophy in coalition negotiations?

Follow Gone By Lunchtime on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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A rubbish bin filled with crumpled paper, one sheet labeled "2024," is set against an orange striped background. A clear plastic bottle lies beside the bowl.
Image: The Spinoff

PoliticsDecember 12, 2024

The world in 2024, in one sentence

A bunch of people
A rubbish bin filled with crumpled paper, one sheet labeled "2024," is set against an orange striped background. A clear plastic bottle lies beside the bowl.
Image: The Spinoff

From ‘testing’ to ‘tiring’, there’s a clear theme.

As 2024 draws to a close, we asked our pantheon of politics watchers to describe the world this year in one sentence, or even a single word. Here’s what they came up with.

Madeleine Chapman (editor, The Spinoff)

Relentless.

Eric Crampton (chief economist, The New Zealand Initiative)

I’ll steal someone else’s instead. “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”

Mihingarangi Forbes (co-host, RNZ’s Mata and Saturday Morning)

Testing and unsettling but an opportunity to learn; to be more focused, disciplined and grateful while being less reactive and angry, ultimately to refocus, draw from positive energy sources and share the aroha far and wide.

Andrew Geddis (law professor, University of Otago)

“I was much further out than you thought / And not waving but drowning.”

Lara Greaves (politics associate professor, University of Auckland)

Tiring or “Democratic Fatigue Syndrome”. 

Gabi Lardies (staff writer, The Spinoff)

An ouroboros but instead of a snake eating its own tail it’s a long coiled turd.

Toby Manhire (editor-at-large, The Spinoff)

Mojo horribilis.

Ben McKay (AAP Pacific editor)

Clamorous. 

Anna Rawhiti-Connell (senior writer and head of audience, The Spinoff)

Nihilistic.

Stewart Sowman-Lund (editor, The Bulletin)

Every year since 2020 has got progressively worse – surely 2025 is going to buck the trend?

Got a word to describe the year? Comment below.

Politics