The newsmakers of Aotearoa in 2023
From devastating floods to policy bonfires to one very consequential election, these were the stories that gripped Bulletin readers this year.
Mōrena, and welcome to the last Bulletin of 2023 for Friday, December 15, by Anna Rawhiti-Connell and Catherine McGregor. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.
The start of the year can sometimes be a bit of a news desert. Not 2023. I can plot where I was when Jacinda Ardern resigned on January 19 by text message.“You're missing all the news,” text Spinoff editor Mad Chapman. Instead of leaping to my laptop, I revealed a weary sympathy and momentarily forgot my job, replying, “Good on her”. The text back? “Would you like to write 700 words of ‘good on her’?” It was the last time I forgot that an “all hands” breaking news story meant “all hands” and an appropriate start to a big year. The shock of that announcement and the path it set for the political year is reflected in the January 20 edition of The Bulletin, which had the highest open rate of any Bulletin ever sent.
At the risk of this turning into a rendition of Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire (revived in a truly awful fashion this year by Fall Out Boy), this morning, Catherine and I wrap up The Bulletin for 2023 with the news year in review.
— Anna Rawhiti-Connell, editor of The Bulletin
January
We started the year by delving into what we thought would be a series on the defining issues of the year. We got through the economy, global headwinds and the potential power of the minor parties before Ardern resigned. January then became a blur of that story, policy bonfires, and the disastrous and unprecedented levels of rainfall in Auckland that caused widespread flooding. We publish the Bulletin lead, or main story, on The Spinoff each weekday morning, and new PM Chris Hipkins’ “reset” was the most read of those this year. “Wayne and Rain to carry on” was also widely read, as questions emerged about Wayne Brown's leadership of Auckland and the city’s preparedness for disaster.
February
February was defined by the arrival of yet another fatal and devastating weather event. Pictures from the Hawkes Bay, Coromandel and Tairāwhiti flooded news sites. The very best of us shone, and anger rightfully bubbled over about forestry slash and the fallibility of our communications infrastructure. Gabrielle and the previous month’s floods in Auckland moved “climate change adaptation” and “managed retreat” from the hypothetical future to the here and now. There was consensus that these events would knock a country already dealing with pre-existing and interlinked crises. Three leads about Gabrielle were big reads both in the newsletter and on the site.
March
As Hipkins settled in, policy announcements from both sides of the aisle began to accelerate. The new PM threw another basket of policies onto his bonfire while Chris Luxon promised to find $400m in savings by taking an axe to the public sector. In what was to become something of a familiar routine for Labour, Stuart Nash was sacked after it was revealed he’d repeatedly shared confidential information with donors. The arrival of British “gender critical” activist Posie Parker in Auckland was the subject of our third-most-read Bulletin onsite and is a story that’s still making waves to this day.
April
Tax policy was the big political story of the month, spurred by the IRD’s major report revealing how little the ultra-rich are taxed. Revenue minister David Parker said it showed the tax system was “fundamentally unfair”, but a risk-averse Hipkins signalled no plans for major changes – putting Parker and the PM on a collision course that would culminate in the minister’s resignation in July. Other April news included the Three Waters rebrand (remember “Affordable Water Reform”?), the axing of Today FM, and Jacinda Ardern’s valedictory speech – the latter covered in our third most-opened newsletter of 2023.
May
Guest writer Toby Manhire dedicated his May 8 Bulletin to a man putting on a hat in the UK while many cheered. Back at home defections were all the rage, with Meka Whaitiri jumping ship from Labour to Te Pāti Māori and Elizabeth Kerekere resigning from the Greens to sit as an independent. May is budget month, and this year finance minister Grant Robertson needed to show fiscal prudence while also offering a few vote-winning baubles. In the end, prudence won out and the bread and butter budget’s giveaways were largely targetted at low-income earners. Our roundup of the best budget analysis was The Spinoff’s sixth most popular Bulletin post of the year.
June
In June, Bulletin readers were particularly interested in the electoral law changes proposed by the Independent Electoral Review, with that edition coming in at number six in our open rate ranking. News of Michael Wood’s failure to declare his shareholding in Auckland airport in early June became his undoing by June 22, with Wood following Whaitiri and Stuart Nash to the file marked “Ministerial resignations, 2023”. By late June, Hipkins was in China, and news of issues with Kiri Allan began to emerge. It was also revealed that our tertiary education sector was under incredible financial strain, and hundreds of academic staff faced the prospect of losing their jobs.
Thank you, and welcome to the table
We launched our fundraising campaign for What’s Eating Aotearoa just over three weeks ago. We described it as “an ambitious fundraising campaign for an equally ambitious editorial project.”
We did not anticipate how many of our supporters would rally four weeks out from Christmas at the end of a tough year to support longform journalism. We had an inkling the idea would be received well, but to have had over $54,000 pledged from 1,148 people in three weeks has been an extraordinary reminder for us of the strength of our community, the merit of the idea and people’s goodwill towards and belief in The Spinoff.
We hit our target and then some. We end this year ready to take a break, enjoy some good kai and prepare for this ambitious editorial project. We cannot wait to share the work with you.
Ngā mihi nui, thank you and have a restful holiday season.
— Mad Chapman, editor of The Spinoff
July
By July policy announcements were coming thick and fast from all parties, but particularly National. Scrapping Let’s Get Wellington Moving, allowing young renters to use Kiwisaver to pay bonds, the pothole repair fund – barely a day in July went by without the then-opposition trumpeting a new plan or pledge. Nicola Willis scored a direct hit on Labour by revealing the government planned to cut GST on fruit and veges, a policy that Grant Robertson had consistently opposed in the past, and the end of the month brought more bad news for Labour with Kiri Allan’s arrest and subsequent resignation as justice minister.
August
The countdown to the election began. Polling got worse for Labour, and Hipkins promised a gear shift. The party’s free (up to a point) dental and GST-free fruit and vege policies were announced. NZ First rose from its knock-out in the 2020 election, and the “rule in, rule out” game began. Christopher Luxon was pressed on working with Winston Peters while Hipkins made an unequivocal call. Late August was marked by scrutiny of National’s tax plan.
September
The first weekend of the month saw the campaign launches of both major parties. An uproar over Weet-bix briefly gripped the nation. Advance voting began. The next big political set pieces were the TV debates, kicking off with a “snoozefest” of a match-up between Hipkins and Luxon that was nonetheless responsible for our seventh biggest Bulletin post of the year. The two leaders returned to the debate stage at the end of the month, and a re-energised PM Hipkins was widely deemed the winner on the night. But was it too little, too late? (Spoiler: yes)
October
October began with the frenetic energy that comes in the last days of an election campaign. National rolled out John Key to try to quash the need to rely on NZ First to form a government. Poll drops and poll bumps littered the news landscapes until the blue wave washed over election night, and the tide went out on the sixth Labour government. Postmortems began, and Te Pāti Māori’s strategic and successful approach to winning the Māori seats was revealed to those who weren’t being directly targeted as voters. Deputy chief coroner Brigitte Windley opened the coronial inquiry into the Christchurch terrorist attacks by asking that those who lost their lives be given voice.
November
It felt like forever. The big political news story of November was the interminable wait for a coalition announcement – until, eventually, on November 24, the deals were done. By then National’s foreign buyers tax had already clearly bitten the dust; the backstory to its scuppering was the Bulletin’s ninth-biggest onsite post of the year. Also reaching a resolution of sorts was Siouxsie Wiles’ employment dispute with Auckland University, which finally made it to court after 22 months in legal limbo. Public interest was huge – our Bulletin about the case was the second-most-opened of the year. The judge’s decision is expected sometime next year. Onsite, the lead about what a new government might mean for the health system was very well-read. On November 20, with UN Secretary-General António Guterres describing the number of civilians killed in Gaza as “unparalleled and unprecedented”, Hipkins broke away from the caretaker convention and called for a ceasefire in Gaza.
December
It wasn’t exactly rocket science to pick the state of the economy as a defining issue in January. Still, we close out the year confronting infrastructure project cost overruns, a fall in GDP, and many of the same issues we started the year with. The coalition has moved swiftly to repeal several pieces of legislation, including Labour’s Fair Pay Agreements law. Parliament began with protest, and the story of Māori-led action and resistance is likely to run for some time yet. Technically, we’re cutting out halfway through this month, with next week’s mini-budget likely to dominate headlines. We have faith that Bulletin readers will know where to find the news they need next week, and rest assured, one of those places will be The Spinoff.
Top ten Bulletins by open rate in 2023
Jacinda Ardern draws a line under her political career and an era
Poll gives Labour a bump as pre-nuptial machinations continue on the right
National’s ‘back to basics’ plan to address the literacy crisis
Five men walk into Te Papa, business leaders present a long face
Top ten Bulletin leads published on The Spinoff
The coalition’s 100-day plan and what it means for the health of New Zealanders
First home purchasers rushing back as door closes again on foreign buyers
Click and Collect (the director’s cut)
Massey University is to eliminate more than 60 jobs as science departments face deep cuts.
“Hazardous drinking” among New Zealanders is at its lowest rate in seven years.
The professional netball league is in jeopardy after Sky bid “less than half” its previous fee for TV rights.
As KiwiRail considers its options post-iRex collapse, The Post (paywalled) reports that cost dangers had been raised for years.
Following Australia’s ban on engineered stone worktops over worker safety concerns, the material may be banned here too.
The summer ‘not quite’ Daily
All our newsletters will be on hiatus until January 15, 2023, but we are doing a new twice-weekly summer reader for all those signed up to get The Spinoff Daily. Sent Wednesday and Friday at the leisurely holiday time of 10am, it’s your chance to kick back and catch up on the best of The Spinoff this year. Sign up below.
Summer is for swimming. But why is there so much pollution in the water? Shanti Mathias investigates. Tommy de Silva collates the new Te Pāti Māori MPs’ maiden speeches in 10 quotes. Victor Roger has nothing to hide on his bookshelf in The Spinoff Books Confessional. Claire Mabey compiles a summer reading list of local crime books. Mira Karunanidhi explains what pulling out of the UNDRIP would mean for New Zealand.
Despite the noted phenomenon of “news fatigue” (we get it), The Bulletin has had its biggest year of subscriber growth since it first launched in 2019. Thank you to everyone who shared and recommended it.
It is always a privilege to write for such a dedicated and engaged subscriber base and to be your “news DJs”, a journalism trend picked to be big next year by Harvard’s journalism lab. Welcome to our five-year-old club, fellow future DJs. Thank you to the journalists, including our colleagues at The Spinoff, whose original tracks we remix each morning.
To those taking a break, we hope it’s safe and relaxing. For those working through, thank you. The Bulletin will return on January 15, 2024.
Anna and Catherine
Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news? Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz.
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And thanks for all your early morning work, providing easy access to reliable news and presented with humour and empathy.
Have a good summer.
Thank you for your excellent relevant journalism. I think I have signed in but found that a run around.