Ahiahi mārie, welcome to The Spinoff Daily. Today on The Spinoff: the short expiry date for longform current affairs on TVNZ+, new advances in tagging on, and the wild 50-year history of Willowbank.
“Six hundred years ago it was water. Then came the land swallower — the earthquake named Haowhenua — which ripped the seabed upwards, turning an island into a peninsula, and revealing the narrow isthmus on which Wellington Airport now sits. The first aeroplane lifted off here in 1911, a homemade machine, briefly airborne over Lyall Bay. In the 1920s, the City Council leveled the sand dunes and built an aerodrome, later upgrading it with unemployed relief workers during the Great Depression. In 1952, the bulldozers came. Roads were rerouted, homes relocated, hillsides flattened. Four hundred and fifty Olympic swimming pools worth of dirt were tipped into the sea. By the time the new airport officially opened in October 1959, it had become the largest municipal project ever undertaken in New Zealand. And like the country’s other key infrastructure built with public money — its roads, hospitals, schools, water pipes and power lines — Wellington’s airport was to be owned and operated publicly. And so it was for 30 years until a new wind swept through, blowing first from the Treasury to the Beehive and then, eventually, to the airport at Rongotai.”
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The hidden problem when ‘news’ isn’t popular Tagging on with your debit card: Motu Move is (almost) here The remarkable story of Willowbank, Christchurch’s first zoo Why (and how) I’m not going to be a Christmas grinch this year From tiny books to ‘brick lit’: Odessa Owens on the scale of her reading habits
On this week’s episode of Gone By Lunchtime: Our hosts reflect on the National-led coalition’s first anniversary in office, the state of Crown-Māori relations following the Hīkoi mō te Tiriti, and the passing of former minister and MP Nikki Kaye. Follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.
The Spinoff Live in Auckland: The Year in Review is on sale now After a sold-out event in Wellington, Anna Rawhiti-Connell will take a running jump backward into the year’s biggest headlines, political dramas and Spinoff yarns in Auckland at Q Theatre on December 11. Anna will be joined onstage by special guests, rose-tinted glasses and Christmas cheer.
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The saga of Wellington Airport
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