Behind the Story

As homelessness hits an all-time high, New Zealand’s frontline organisations are embracing unconventional and innovative strategies. Joel MacManus takes a closer look at the crisis and meets the people who claim to have the cure.

Story by Joel MacManus.

Read by Te Aihe Butler.

Made with support from The Spinoff Members.

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Every other week we read reports of the rising rates of homelessness in our major cities. These stories are sometimes about homelessness itself and other times about the siblings of homelessness, like crime and welfare. Wellington editor Joel MacManus spent months speaking to those on the frontline in the fight to solve homelessness once and for all. It’s a long read, so for the first time ever we’ve made Cover Stories available in audio form. If you’d rather hear the story than read it, Te Aihe Butler has voiced Joel’s story and you can find it right here in the Behind The Story feed. Joel’s reporting covers the causes, the implications and the potential solution for homelessness in New Zealand. A comprehensive assessment of where we are at as a country in caring for our most vulnerable, and far we still have to go.

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After receiving a tip-off from an Elemeno P fan about a suspicious sounding new song from Elemeno P, staff writer Gabi Lardies followed the trail to a Ukrainian music producer, a distribution platform being sued for half a billion dollars, and the unresolved question: If it’s not Elemeno P, why is it on their official music pages? Gabi sat down with editor Madeleine Chapman for Behind the Story to discuss the new world of stories about AI, and the frustration when you can’t quite crack the case.

Elemeno P released a new song for the first time in 13 years, but is it real?

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Last week, The Spinoff unveiled its top 100 New Zealand TV shows of the 21st century, sparking plenty of debate about what truly deserved the top spot. This week, The Spinoff senior writer and Top 100 listmaster Alex Casey is joined by a panel of TV fanatics – Kura Forrester, Rhiannon McCall, Stewart Sowman-Lund and Lyric Waiwiri-Smith – for a special Behind The Story recorded live event at Q Theatre in Auckland. Together, they'll unearth some beloved TV gems and make their cases for their all-time favourite local TV show, with the live audience helping choose a new winner.

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Senior writer Alex Casey spent the past couple of months deep in local television, leading one of our most ambitious projects to date: The Spinoff top 100 NZ TV shows of the 21st century. Every day this week we have counted down 20 shows, each given its time in the sun as a crucial piece in our cultural puzzle. On Friday, we released the final 20, crowning a winner and drawing to a close more than 30,000 words published on New Zealand Television in one week. Alex joins Madeleine Chapman to discuss the complex process of judging local television, the surprise hits and the value in looking back at what we’ve produced as a country.

The Spinoff top 100 NZ TV shows

100-81

80-61

60-41

40-21

20-1

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Senior writer Anna Rawhiti-Connell steps into the hosting chair to talk to editor Madeleine Chapman about her exclusive reporting on the hiring process for three human rights commissioner roles.

The process was overseen by justice minister Paul Goldsmith, with an independent assessment panel conducting interviews and making recommendations to him. After raising an eyebrow at two of the appointed commissioners (Stephen Rainbow and Melissa Derby), Madeleine requested information through an OIA.

This week, that OIA returned with some interesting redactions, showing neither Rainbow nor Derby were on the hiring panel’s shortlists of recommended candidates. Madeleine and Anna sat down for Behind the Story to discuss the art of painting a picture around redacted information, what these roles might mean and if there’s more to uncover in this story.

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Chris Pryor and Miriam Smith are arguably New Zealand’s best observational documentary makers. After two award-winning feature-length documentaries (The Ground We Won and How Far is Heaven), Chris and Miriam turned their attention to the shorter form, and dived deep on home education – parents who teach their kids at home. The six-part series follows six different families approaching education in six unique ways. From a dahlia farm to a bus, to a simple living room, Home Education explores the many reasons parents choose not to send their kids to school. Chris and Miriam joined Madeleine, live from the series launch at The Spinoff offices, to discuss observational filming, the allure of conviction in beliefs and how making the show changed their own views as new parents.

Episode one: Jen and the dahlia kids

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Deputy editor Alice Neville joins Madeleine Chapman to discuss OIAs, wading through document dumps and making government speak accessible. Alice spends most of her time editing other writers’ work but when she does find time to write, she dives deep. Three weeks ago, we published a longform feature from Alice headlined “Inside the government’s beleaguered bid to reduce violent crime”. It detailed the many complicated layers in the government’s violent crime target, and walked us through why a simple target isn’t so straightforward. This week, she followed up by reporting on the details that weren’t included in the government’s recent updates. Including that the vast majority of additional violent crime victims in the latest survey were women, and the connection between financial stress and violent crime.

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This week, staff writer Gabi Lardies steps in as guest host, joined by Books editor Claire Mabey to discuss her in-depth investigative cover story. Claire is deeply embedded in the publishing industry in Aotearoa, so she clearly remembers the shock when Narrative Muse was awarded $500,000 to boost sales of New Zealand books. In a closely connected sector, no-one had heard of Narrative Muse, or any of the people behind it, before. Three years later, Claire has canvassed the industry to see what impact that half a million dollars had, if any.

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Bulletin editor Stewart Sowman-Lund has had a few roles in his time at the Spinoff, first as live updates editor, then reporter, and now as bulletin editor. Writing a bulletin every morning takes up plenty of his time, but he also specialises in following those random, one-off tips that every journalist gets.This week’s tip was from a man who had strangely been called by the police while driving, to tell him to stop using his phone while driving.

‘It was quite baffling’: Police call driver on motorway to say ‘stop using your phone’

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