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PODCAST

Gone By Lunchtime

A New Zealand politics podcast hosted by The Spinoff"s Toby Manhire with Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas.

news politics

All Episodes

22:50

New Year special: 2026 in NZ politics

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/12/30

Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire take a quick break from partying atop the Sky Tower to discuss the highlights from the political year that was, before sharing their predictions for 2026. Happy new year!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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39:22

Summer Reissue: Emergency politics Toddcast - The...

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/12/23

Gone By Lunchtime is taking a break over summer. We’ll be back soon with new episodes but, until then, here’s one of our favourites from the vault:At 7.30am, just 53 days after he replaced Simon Bridges as leader of the National Party, Todd Muller announced his immediate resignation from the job. How did it come to this, and who is likely to emerge as the new leader, with less than 10 weeks to an election? Will deputy Nikki Kaye be promoted by caucus tonight? Is it Judith Collins' time? Can Simon

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52:26

Breaking: everything is good now

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/12/10

His summer break may only be 20 minutes long, but Christopher Luxon goes into it grinning, on the back of a poll that saw a swing to the right, boosted economic confidence data, maybe staring down a maybe-coup, and most crucially, snipping the ribbon on the big green, yellow and blue shoot: Ikea. Just how confident must he feel going into Christmas? Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas chew it over, plus: poor poll numbers for the Greens and Te Pāti Māori, as TPM limp through an AGM

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64:26

The Luxon conundrum

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/11/26

There’s a lot of talk about challenges to Christopher Luxon’s leadership. Toby, Ben and Annabelle do as they must and talk about the talk and whether there’s more to it. First on the agenda, however, is a reform trailed as the biggest overhaul of local government since 1989 – just how will this new Galactic Senate setup work, and can it fix the resource management mess? Plus: all the reasons, mostly involving Winston Peters, that it is very clear we’re in election season, and a revelatory new

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52:22

The Police and the bad apple thesis

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/11/12

A shocking report by the Independent Police Conduct Authority has revealed a litany of serious failings in the handling of complaints relating to the disgraced former deputy commissioner Jevon McSkimming. Not only were the complaints from a former lover diverted from the appropriate channels by senior leaders including former police boss Andrew Coster, the woman involved was arrested and prosecuted for harmful digital communications.The new commissioner and the police minister insist that it is a

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51:26

Good news: NZ is back on track

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/10/30

In his first face-to-face encounter with Donald Trump, Christopher Luxon has exchanged hair jokes and golf banter. Does that confirm that back on track level has been achieved? Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas deliver their verdicts on the latest from the PM, Winston Peters getting angsty about pronouns and Labour solving the challenges of how to define the capital gains tax it will take to the next election by defining it as: three free GP visits for all. Plus: is Te Pāti Māori on

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53:01

Meltdown in Te Pāti Māori

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/10/15

A 10pm email to members blew apart the reset mood in Te Pāti Māori on Monday night with a litany of allegations and appendices dating back years, as part of a “transparency” effort in response to claims of bullying and a “dictatorial” leadership by Eru Kapa-Kingi of the Toitū Te Tiriti movement. Just what, ask Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire, is going on? And what are the implications from here?Plus: a trio of new polls paints a consistent picture, and it’s not great for Chris or

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41:54

Peters delivers Palestine decision in New York

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/09/30

After a protracted process and plenty of speculation, Winston Peters has announced the cabinet decision on acknowledgement of Palestinian statehood in his address to the general assembly at the United Nations. Not now, he said. “We are not ready to make that gesture.” Variously received as a laudable assertion of independence in avoiding “performative” politics and a “day of shame” for New Zealand, what does the announcement tell us about New Zealand’s foreign policy, our position on Israeli

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54:04

Te Pāti Māori wrenches defeat from the jaws of victory

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/09/18

Celebrations for a big and bodacious Oriini Kaipara byelection victory were shortlived for Te Pāti Māori thanks to Tākuta Ferris's decision to double down on a social media post aghast at a multicultural group of Labour supporters for Peeni Henare on the campaign trail. That was compounded by party president John Tamihere entering the breach, and a mysterious reollaction of the role of party whip. Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire talk through the fallout and ask what it means for

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63:24

Pulse check, pub quiz & predictions: live from WORD...

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/09/02

In a special live edition of GBL in Ōtautahi, Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas complete a stocktake of the governing and alternative coalitions with a little over a year to election time. There is heckling, there are pub questions from politicians, and there are piping hot takes. Recorded at the Piano on August 30.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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44:46

Bonus ep: Thoughts on the Jacinda Ardern film and book

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/08/08

Hot on the heels of the publication of A Different Kind of Power comes Prime Minister, an enthralling new film that applies a genuinely gobsmacking lens on Jacinda Ardern's time in power. In this special edition of Gone By Lunchtime, Madeleine Chapman, editor of the Spinoff (and author of Jacinda Ardern: A New Kind of Leader), joins Toby Manhire to talk about the film, which has just had its New Zealand premiere at the NZ International Film Festival, and the autobiography, what they tell us about

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43:31

It’s all fine apart from butter, Trump, netball, etc

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/08/05

Christopher Luxon took a short and sharp mindset into the National Party conference on the weekend and with good reason: there is much getting back on track still to be done. He arrived in Christchurch amid a blur of bleak headlines, focused mostly on an economic mood epitomised by butter, netball crowds, abrupt Trump tariffs, unemployment numbers, and so on. Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire assess the state of play. But first: a trio who did school cert in fifth form look at the

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46:41

‘The one thing they could blow up the government over’

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/07/16

We rattle through the regulatory standards bill, its advocates, its dissenters, and the tension it has created within the coalition. How serious is the fissure it has prodded between Act and New Zealand First Party (amplified by a cameo appearance by a United Nations special rapporteur)? Also on the agenda for Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire: the state of play in the Tāmaki Makaurau byelection, and the state of yuck in Wellington local body politics. You’ll never guess what we

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43:14

We have issues, many issues

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/07/02

With an election about 15 months away, there are few better ways to get a sense of the political terrain than the Ipsos Issues Monitor, a survey that tracks the issues of greatest concern to New Zealanders, the parties they consider best equipped to deal with those issues, and how all of that has changed over time. Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas assess the latest edition of the study, and the messages it sends on cost of living, health and more. Plus: Shane Jones is promoting a

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43:42

New Zealand punches above its tightrope

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/06/18

Around the world, the flames of aggression and instability are burning. As Christopher Luxon arrives in China his immediate challenge is to douse the alarm from several former politicians and ensure that the relationship with leaders in New Zealand’s biggest export market are sweet. From there, the New Zealand prime minister is off to Europe and another guest spot at Nato, who are meeting in the Hague. In a new episode of Gone By Lunchtime, Toby Manhire, Ben Thomas and Annabelle Lee-Mather chew

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42:50

Polling, ex-PMs, dickheadery and a goat sacrifice

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/06/03

We're officially in the second half of the term, a milestone marked by the historic handover of the hallowed deputy prime minister amulet from Winston Peters to David Seymour. The moment comes with pageantry, a flurry of interviews and a pair of new polls, which deliver intriguing, and sometimes divergent results. Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas pore over the results and what they mean for the parties and the politicians in the post-budget, post-pay-equity-reshape wash-up. Plus:

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28:46

Budget special: When The Facts Change x Gone By...

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/05/22

In the year of growth, Nicola Willis has presented a growth budget. But does the Investment Boost initiative, which speeds up depreciation for businesses, promise the kind of growth that the economy needs? In this special Spinoff pod for budget day, Toby Manhire asks Bernard Hickey for his take on the headline changes, and whether or not David Seymour’s earlier commentary that his colleague Brooke van Velden had “saved the budget” through its controversial and hurried changes to the pay equiry

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54:33

House of C****

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/05/21

Unprecedented punishments imposed on Te Pāti Māori MPs, and the scramble to avoid banning them from the budget debate, is top of the agenda this week. Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire assess the fallout, before rewinding to last week’s theatrical parliamentary controversy, all of which stemmed from a C-word in a newspaper column, and led Winston Peters, doyen of parliamentary decorum, to deplore a “House of Chaos” (by which he did not mean the popular monthly techno night at

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52:31

Really, really urgent

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/05/07

An overhaul of the pay equity process has been whisked through parliament under urgency. The changes, which tighten the criteria for making a claim for workers in female-dominated sectors and summarily halt 33 existing claims in the pipeline, have prompted a major backlash, in part for their substance and in part for the decision to push the reform through without the usual consultation under a select committee process or regulatory impact statement. Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and Toby

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35:01

Australian election special with Ben McKay

Gone By Lunchtime ·

2025/04/30

This Saturday Aussies will (compulsorily) head to the polls. At the start of the year, Labor under Anthony Albanese was staring down the barrel of defeat and the first one-term government for almost 100 years. But with a few days to go, the pollsters are all picking that he'll return to power. What changed? Where did Peter Dutton's makeover go wrong? What happened to the Coalition campaign? Did Donald Trump play a role? To tackle these questions, complete with yarns about salmon and wallabies and

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284 results

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