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haydendonnell.bsky.social
Hayden Donnell
@haydendonnell.bsky.social
2.7K followers 310 following 360 posts
New Zealand's foremost authority on the Big Fresh Animatronic Fruit & Veggies

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haydendonnell.bsky.social
Historically true but our bus network is actually pretty comprehensive now and the trains are obviously gonna improve in a year. Hard to overcome the structural difficulties of sprawl
November 19, 2025 at 7:19 PM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
Auckland’s traffic is bad because we built all our houses in Massey and Papakura to avoid upsetting the inhospitable residents of our inner city suburbs thespinoff.co.nz/society/19-1...
November 19, 2025 at 6:55 PM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
Took a flight to Whakatāne last week. Got to interview the very cool new mayor Nándor Tánczos and most importantly, was finally able to see NZ's most impressive municipal building in person thespinoff.co.nz/politics/05-...
Giving the thumbs up outside the world's greatest municipal building, Whakatāne airport, which looks like a deranged castle, with a turret and an array randomly sloping roofs
November 5, 2025 at 10:57 PM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
Vulgar graffiti on the northwestern cycle path, yet more evidence this city has descended into lawlessness
October 14, 2025 at 11:47 PM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
Step one: engineer a recession and cancel infrastructure projects. Step two: get mad at people for not having a job

thespinoff.co.nz/politics/10-...
The Spinoff: In other words, we did it, folks. Joblessness is up. Inflation is down. Mince is admittedly four trillion dollars. But overall, success! Surely our government should be pulling a George W Bush and unfurling a mission accomplished banner above the rusted deck of the HMNZS Canterbury. Instead, it called a press conference to say, in essence, wtf. Luxon and social development minister Louise Upston gathered reporters on Sunday to announce too many 18- and 19-year-olds were claiming the benefit, and they’ll be cutting them off if their parents earn more than the princely sum of $65,529 combined. Asked where young people should get a job in a recession, which, again, we deliberately engineered, Luxon pointed to kūmara harvesting in Dargaville or seasonal work in orchards. Orchardists promptly responded that they didn’t need more staff right now.
October 9, 2025 at 9:54 PM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
experiencing a swell of patriotism over our officials repeatedly losing secret government documents at second hand stores
RNZ: Confidential Wellington council documents found by man in mayoral desk bought from dump Newsroom: Secret defence notes pointing to sensitive China preparation left at op shop Nothing happened for a year. Then in August 2025 a shopper browsing through a pile of op shop goods made a most surprising discovery. The trove of secret documents from the Portsmouth meetings had been accidentally donated to a Hutt Valley Salvation Army store.
October 9, 2025 at 3:59 AM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
I have been back at The Spinoff for a while and once again I am doing very well thank you thespinoff.co.nz/politics/06-...
Hello, are you in the hospital? OK you are using government. But did you do a poo in the hospital toilet? That’s pipes. Council. Did you get driven to the hospital on a road? Probably council unless it was a motorway straight to the hospital door. Are you in school? Fine that’s government. But did you use a pedestrian crossing to get to school? Council. Did you go on a bus? Again, council.
October 5, 2025 at 9:37 PM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
Was surprised to learn on Waatea News recently that the deputy PM doesn’t think politicians should change election rules without a public vote, and am expecting that Act will withdraw its support for restrictions on voter registration any day now thespinoff.co.nz/politics/01-...
But if you don’t live by your principles, they start to look less like principles, and more like self-interest. On Waatea, Seymour left no room for doubt: he believes meaningful election changes should be put to a public vote before they’re enacted. Surely what’s good for the lefty goose is good for the libertarian gander. The Electoral Amendment Bill will have its second reading in the coming months. There’s still time for the deputy prime minister – and the government – to have a change of heart, and show some consistency.
October 1, 2025 at 8:12 AM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
Really big day for our nation's headline writers
October 1, 2025 at 5:47 AM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
Personally think we should consider making this not just the way it is
If a wealthy sex offender donates a large amount of money to charity, should they be eligible for a reduced prison sentence? A top King’s Counsel says it’s not unusual for a court to award a sentence discount for reparation or compensation. Does that put a rich criminal in a better position at sentencing than someone with less money? “Yes, and that’s just life. That is just the way it is,” Marie Dyhrberg, KC, told the Herald
September 27, 2025 at 11:34 PM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
Feel like our priorities on what's urgent may be a bit skewed
Not good enough to take 20 days to count special votes But recognising Palestinian statehood is not a race
September 27, 2025 at 2:24 AM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
Our strongest anti-cancel culture warriors once again hard at work defending free speech
Sean Plunket and Damien Grant trying to get David Farrier deported for being rude about Charlie Kirk
September 17, 2025 at 10:41 PM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
on the one hand, this sounds like it won't raise enough money for them to fund meaningful tax relief for the people struggling the most with the cost of living, but on the other it will be ruthlessly attacked and exploited by their political opponents
Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more Kia ora! I’m able to do this sort of accountability and explanatory journalism on housing unaffordability, child poverty reduction and climate change inaction because over 3,000 people have become fully paid subscribers to The Kākā’s daily emails and podcasts. Join as a full subscriber to be able to comment below and get all my daily emails and podcasts, and invites to my weekly webinars. Labour heading for barely-there CGT Hipkins expected to settle within weeks on capital gains tax that excludes family home, farms, businesses and buildings, focusing instead on land under second homes and rentals
September 15, 2025 at 12:16 AM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
go for my amazing feature image design skills, stay for an in-depth discussion of infrastructure thespinoff.co.nz/politics/12-...
September 11, 2025 at 11:01 PM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
First day back at The Spinoff but the damn mayor is stealing all my story ideas
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown is having none of it, telling the Star-Times that the “desperate deputy prime minister” shouldn’t “stick his nose in it”. “So they want to build out in Pukekohe so they can get re-elected in Epsom? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?” says Brown. The wealthy peninsula suburb has a large number of historic villas and has largely resisted intensification. “We want the Devonport ferry to be marked up as a mainline transit so we can concentration of building design as you do in other high speed transit.” “You’re not going to be building high rises in Devonport, are you? This is going to upset everyone,” Brewer challenged Brown. “Yeah, but they deserve to be upset,” Brown responded.
September 7, 2025 at 7:57 PM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
Final team meeting for Mediawatch. Gonna miss this guy!!
August 26, 2025 at 4:14 AM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
pointing out the housing "wealth effect" our commentators and politicians are pining for comes with a corresponding "I'm on the bones of my arse" effect for everyone who doesn't own housing thespinoff.co.nz/society/26-0...
August 25, 2025 at 11:44 PM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
The lecture I delivered in Ponsonby last night wasn't universally well-received
Me presenting a lecture slide containing the headline 'Defund Ponsonby (and give the money to suburbs that actually accept new housing)
August 14, 2025 at 10:59 PM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
this is an image I think about a lot. It's old now but not that much has changed. The big circles are where we build most in Auckland and you'll notice the biggest ones are absolutely nowhere near the city fringe where all the best public transport and infrastructure is
Auckland's development patterns 2019-2020 the small circles are in places like Herne Bay and Ponsonby
August 3, 2025 at 11:17 PM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
a response to Christine Fletcher and Troy Churton's thing in the Herald last week. These people always say the Unitary Plan zoned for enough housing without mentioning all that housing is in Te Atatu and Milldale. They can't keep getting away with this! thespinoff.co.nz/politics/04-...
Even with that reduction in place, Fletcher, Churton and their supporters still aren’t happy. They worry about an “oversupply” of housing and make shows of concern about a collapse of our “suburban and cultural diversity”. But if the government is able to force Auckland Council to zone for an abundance of new housing, the most noticeable change to the city will be that its wealthiest, most well-connected suburbs are no longer an exclusive enclave for Fletcher, whose property holdings are so valuable she once famously told her colleagues she pays $5,000 per month in rates, or her similarly well-to-do constituents. That’s not a collapse of its cultural diversity. It’s an expansion. It’s not creating an oversupply of housing. It’s finally allowing it to be built in the places where people want to live. Underneath all this apparent altruistic concern for the fabric of the city, you can hear the faint but unmistakable sound of a familiar refrain: not in my backyard.
August 3, 2025 at 10:45 PM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
Wow huge news in today's Media Insider, though I have to say it’s a real indictment on RNZ Mediawatch's @haydendonnell.bsky.social that he didn't get this scoop
RNZ says it’s still finalising requests of staff who have asked for voluntary redundancy, and can’t provide an update or numbers at this stage. However, Media Insider can reveal today that one of RNZ Mediawatch’s two presenters is off. Mediawatch producer Hayden Donnell – who works alongside host Colin Peacock – has made the call to leave RNZ on August 28 and starts at The Spinoff as a senior writer on September 8.
July 31, 2025 at 8:35 PM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
I have written about what scientists are calling the "fundamental rootedness" at the heart of our society thespinoff.co.nz/society/29-0...
All these products serve as a temporary focal point for the broader sense that everything’s completely rooted. Butter is guilty of being too brazen about filching from our back pockets, with its roughly 50% price rise year on year, but most household staples are getting way out of hand. Buying enough mince for burgers costs an hour’s work on the minimum wage. Cheese toasties are in “sell your kidney” territory. Most significantly, sour coke lollies are now upwards of $2 a bag. Unless you’re earning $6 million as the chief executive of Fonterra, it hurts paying for the basics.
July 29, 2025 at 8:29 AM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
if we're excluding voters for thinking the wrong way about tax or not being engaged enough in politics, why stop with just the ones who enrol on election day thespinoff.co.nz/politics/28-...
He might have got away with that too, if it wasn’t for the brave whistleblowers in his own governing coalition. As is often the case, Act arrived to cut through the government spin. Its leader David Seymour said the changes would only affect “dropkicks” who refused to get organised. Act’s justice spokesperson Todd Stephenson went further, announcing he was sick of layabouts turning up at a polling booth and having the temerity to vote for parties other than Act. “Democracy works best when voters are informed, engaged, and take the process seriously,” he said. “It’s outrageous that someone completely disengaged and lazy can rock up to the voting booth, get registered there and then, and then vote to tax other people’s money away.”
July 27, 2025 at 9:47 PM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
Grok has once again gone Woke
Grok telling Cam Slater that Sean Plunket is his dumbest follower
July 26, 2025 at 11:44 PM
haydendonnell.bsky.social
I created a data visualisation on the dilemma facing local councillors for my latest uncharacteristically non-despairing column thespinoff.co.nz/politics/21-...
fetch meme: Pls infrastructure, no pay, only infrastructure
July 20, 2025 at 11:26 PM