If you’re just tuning back into the news cycle after a few weeks of rest and relaxation, let’s get you up to speed on the biggest New Zealand headlines.

Green MP Golriz Ghahraman was accused of shoplifting

Possibly the only story that made me briefly consider tuning back into the news cycle while on holiday, the accusations against the sitting Green MP first made headlines last week – and it remains a major developing story. In short, Golriz Ghahraman was accused of shoplifting from upmarket Ponsonby boutique Scotties in late December.

After first being reported last week, the story later evolved to reveal that this had allegedly happened twice, with the value of the stolen goods said to be about $15,000. Ghahraman has not spoken about the allegations, which are being investigated by police, but has since returned to New Zealand after a pre-planned overseas trip. The Green Party revealed it was aware of the claims since before the new year, but did not make any public comments until media reports first emerged.

An MP’s maiden speech went global

New Zealand’s youngest MP has already had her fair share of attention since being elected last October. But Hana Rawhiti-Maipi Clarke’s fame has now gone global, with her maiden speech being picked up by numerous news outlets around the world. Intriguingly, many of the links I saw online were from Indian sources, but Maipi-Clarke’s powerful speech, in which she took aim at the new government for “attacking” her “whole world”, was also reported widely in Australia and the UK and racked up millions upon millions of views on TikTok.

I’ll be honest, the virality of this largely passed me by over the break – but I probably should have worked it out when I scrolled past a tweet about Maipi-Clarke from British broadcasting icon Carol Vorderman a few weeks back. Vorderman described it as the “best maiden speech” she had ever seen and said it gave her goosebumps. 

BNZ announced a leaseholding deal with an Auckland iwi

A funding collaboration between BNZ and Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei will see 24 new homes constructed in Auckland for members of the hapū that meet the bank’s normal home lending criteria. Finance for housing on Māori-owned land has historically been a bit tricky, the bank noted in a press release announcing the decision. “The unique ownership structure and restrictions on land transferability often meant that it couldn’t be used as security for loans, creating a significant barrier for Māori home ownership,” BNZ said. 

Some progress was made on the long-touted Auckland waterfront stadium

Yup, we’re still talking about an Auckland waterfront stadium. But as the Herald’s Bernard Orsman reported over the break, developments for a new venue have actually progressed. A new proposal suggests a 55,000-seat waterfront stadium could be built alongside a new indoor arena and an outdoor amphitheatre for harbour sports as part of a refresh of the Wynyard Quarter precinct. It’s part of a plan to make Auckland into a “mini-Melbourne” by developing a comparable collection of inner-city sports and entertainment venues.

Don’t get your hopes up just yet, however – it’s just one of four possible proposals for entertainment venues being considered. Other options on the table include a major update to Eden Park and a stadium that would be partially submerged in the harbour.

Light rail was (finally) scrapped

The coalition government was quick to axe a number of projects implemented by the Labour government (more on that further down), but light rail was probably the biggest casualty. It’s no surprise the costly transport project was ditched, given not a single metre of rail had been built despite six years of talk about it happening. While National and its coalition partners will have to defend the decision to stop all work on light rail, it’s Labour that will be left pondering why it couldn’t deliver the project in the first place.

Jacinda Ardern (finally) got married

After Covid hampered previous plans for the former PM to tie the knot with her partner Clarke Gayford, this weekend saw the long-awaited wedding finally take place. There was tight security at the Craggy Range winery in Hawke’s Bay, though nothing could stop the world’s media from broadcasting fuzzy images through a hedge of Ardern in her dress nor prevent invited guests from being papped leaving their accommodation.

Highlights from the Herald’s live blog included the arrival of some generators, while Newshub was potentially first to break the news that a large tent would be used as the reception venue. A side note: current Labour MP Kieran McAnulty got married on the same day, which the Daily Mail described as a “bizarre twist”.

Wellington faces a water crisis

The capital is facing a potential water shortage, with level two water restrictions to enter into force from tomorrow. That means limited outdoor water use (you can water your garden via hand, but not with sprinklers) but is not a full ban. However, as Stuff reported, level four restrictions could be implemented next month. That would mean no outdoor water use, very short showers and just a single washing machine load per household per week.

Meanwhile, residents in the capital have reported disruptive leaks across the city as the capital’s ageing water infrastructure continues to cause problems. Wellington Water reported it fixed 552 leaks in December, of which 42 were considered to be urgent and another 44 high priority.

New year, new (year’s) honours 

The annual list of honours saw two new dames and three sirs, including Pania Tyson-Nathan for services to Māori and business and, somewhat controversially, Trevor Mallard for services as a member of parliament and as speaker of the house of representatives. The full list can be found here.

An end to the ‘ute tax’

The government ended the clear car discount – or the so-called “ute tax” – on New Year’s Eve. Launched two years previously, the Labour scheme introduced fees for buyers of newly imported petrol vehicles, with the cost going towards subsidising electric or plug-in hybrid cars. It was National election policy to scrap the scheme, a move that was ridiculed by Labour and the Greens, especially when it was revealed that Christopher Luxon may have claimed the discount himself when purchasing a new Tesla (Luxon has repeatedly said this was a car for his wife).

We reached the peak of our fifth wave of Covid-19 infections

New Zealand’s fifth Covid wave started in November last year, as numbers started to tick up just in time for the busy summer break. Ministry of Health figures reported by Stuff showed that 355 people were in hospital with Covid-19 in the week ending January 7, with Covid communicator Michael Baker saying the number of daily hospital admissions ahead of Christmas was the highest they had been all year. “You’re getting up to 60 admissions a day of people who are sick enough to go to hospital,” Baker told Stuff. The number of weekly hospitalisations had dipped slightly to 324 as at midnight Sunday.

The Herald reported yesterday that new wastewater data showed Covid-19 infections had peaked this week at their highest levels since the fifth wave began. “ESR’s most recent surveillance showed a national average of 8.59 million copies of the virus detected per person, per day in wastewater at January 7 – three times the levels observed in mid-spring, and higher than the largest values reported over December,” said the Herald.

Before people’s homes were a sea of grey and beige, there was colour, customisation and aesthetic extravagance. What do we make of that today?

All in one glance, there’s a bathroom with a glass ceiling, a kitchen with lime green cabinetry, and a bedroom with a vivid red wall. This is Interiors of Northland, an Instagram account cataloguing the unique homes in the hot and happening tip of our country. Its bio is three simple words (“Interiors to Inspire”) and it’s a million miles away from the bland interiors fashionable in urban centres.  

The more time you spend looking through the images, the more you’re tugged between horror, fascination and awe. We have all been trained to think of some design choices as ‘good’ and others as ‘ugly’, but high culture is fickle, changing with time, your socio-economic status, cultural alliances, where you are, who you are, and who you pretend to be. As a millennial in Auckland, I’ve been awash in a sea of greige. From this vantage point, Interiors of Northland is either a thorn or the rose it grows on.

On some posts, there are comments like “Ghastly!” and “spew,” and on others, commenters note, with apparent surprise, that they “actually” or “genuinely” like what they see. The man behind the account never reveals his own preferences. “I don’t think it’s up to me to criticise it,” he says, although he is the one who takes screenshots of the online real estate listings and posts them to a cult following of a few thousand people. He does not share images of his own home and prefers to stay anonymous, worried that the account might violate copyright laws. For the purposes of tidy sentences and grammar, we will call him Josh.

It’s tempting to view the account as a humiliation of sorts. There are the mean comments mentioned above, and many of the followers are creative older millennials: photographers, architects, fashion designers and graphic designers; aesthetically-driven people who consider their own taste to be impeccable – and quite different to what’s pictured on Interiors of Northland. They likely live in urban centres (Auckland, I reckon), where it’s common for residents to look down on the culture of the regions, and up at places like New York, London and Berlin (wow, so edgy). 

The appeal of the account then could be a sort of ironic parody; a cynical mocking of what they consider bad taste. 

Josh is aware of this possible reception, though it isn’t one that he welcomes. “People take it the wrong way,” he says of the snobs. Sometimes Instagram users “gang up” against people’s homes, he adds, noting that certain aesthetic choices are “trashed” and “policed”. These commenters “don’t get it”, in Josh’s opinion. The account is intended as a tongue-in-cheek celebration of the unique homes, and though not every paint colour or custom fixture is to Josh’s taste, “I love that someone loves that,” he says.

If you look closely, you can see the care he has taken to discourage the semi-ironic mocking and judgement. The photographs have been carefully curated and cropped, then given captions like “Prada or clipart”, “Minimalism is dead” and “Floored”. Instead of presenting the interiors as a parody or stereotype of ‘bad taste’, there’s a sincerity and an appreciation. He is earnestly trying to show different types of beauty, at the same time as he knows they might not fit the contemporary mould of what beautiful is.

Josh started Interiors of Northland in 2018, when he was looking for a home in Whangarei. He was used to living in rentals in Auckland, usually weatherboard character homes, with the original interiors stripped out and layers of white, grey or beige paint plastered over everything. In Whangarei, he instead found zesty lime paint, black and red leather couches, and floral wallpaper, and was rather struck. Much of the decor remained intact from eras like the 60s or 70s, and he was amazed it had escaped renovations. “It just enthralled me,” he says. 

Once he became a long-time purveyor of Northland’s real estate, he started to notice something “really sad”. Houses originally listed in all their character and patterned-carpet glamour would reappear on the market months later. All their unique details had been removed, a coat of grey or beige paint slapped on, and “shitty quality” new fixtures replaced vintage lights and cabinetry. Josh felt some unease, since he’s a millennial in the creative class, like many of the account’s fans, he knew these renovations were being made to appease tastes like his own. “I felt like I was part of the system of sanitising spaces,” he says. 

While the account’s reception has been mixed, the very existence of Interiors of Northland suggests people have had enough of interiors their eyes glide over, totally unoffended by any stray colour or character. While the account’s followers may have once looked down their noses at the quirky interiors, they’ve quietly carved out room for them in their hearts. There was a time before greige, as Interiors of Northland proves. There will be a time after greige, too.