The PM dismisses the Green party alternative budget
Released by second-tier English club Hull City, Mason Johnson has now made Napier City Rovers his home. Video / Neil Reid
Reporter Marii is at the World Dance Crew Championships, where hip hop duos from all around the world, including Auckland's En-Locked, are battling for medals and cash.
Police forensics team and detectives continue to comb Onekawa properties in the hunt for Kaea Karauria's killer. Video / Neil Reid
National and Labour accuse each other of lying over pay equity claims. Video / Mark Mitchell
A trailer unit rolled outside Christchurch this morning, spilling hundreds of chickens across the road. Video / George Heard
Principals question $100m maths spend, ex-cop faces porn probe, US and China agree to major tariff reductions.
Chris Hipkins delivers pre-Budget speech at the Wellington Chamber of Commerce. Video / NZ Herald
Reporter Carter is in Whangamatā where car collector Billy reveals what it took to get this custom 2-door 1950 Cadillac back on the road.
Black Power members perform a farewell haka for Manurewa homicide victim Selwyn Robson. Video / Supplied
Education Minister Erica Stanford announcing measures to improve mathematics in schools. Video / Mark Mitchell
Christopher Luxon answers a question on the resignation of the Police Deputy Commissioner
With the countries current vaccination rates, an expert warns New Zealand is at risk of a measles epidemic. Video / Dean Purcell / Katie Oliver / Ben Dickens
Christopher Luxon holds a post-Cabinet press conference
Gypsy Rose Blanchard stars in season 2 of the Lifetime series Life After Lock Up, streaming on TVNZ+ in New Zealand. Video / TVNZ
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1News
an hour ago
- 1News
'It tested us' – the Tipenes on pain, joy and a new series
Francis and Kaiora Tipene on harsh times, the cure for anger, the joy of tamariki, Paris, Tonga and their new series of The Casketeers which premieres Wednesday. The Tipenes were in Paris, just the two of them, on a romantic trip with no work, no camera crew, not one of their seven children present. But by day three, Francis Tipene wanted to leave. 'It had been a 36-hour flight to get there,' says his wife, Kaiora. 'We hadn't even been there two nights and he started to pine for our daughter. He said, 'let's go back to our kids'. And so after a couple more days, they did. Francis agrees it was a long way to go, just to turn around. But after seven sons (he has one from a previous relationship, six with Kaiora), 'I finally got the daughter and man, that changed me.' Now almost two, Ngawaiata has just started Kōhanga reo. 'She was counting at 11 months,' says Francis. 'Tahi, rua... And English too. All these things just make all my problems go away.' ADVERTISEMENT Ah yep, problems. Since before Ngawaiata was born, the Tipenes have been dealing with big, dreadful, public problems. First stop is Tonga in the new series launching Wednesday, June 11. (Source: TVNZ) To recap: Last month their long-term employee at Tipene Funerals, Fiona Bakulich, was sent to prison for interfering with human remains and obtaining money by deception. The victims, all grieving families, were subjected to experiences ranging from the distressing (lifting the lid of a loved one's coffin to discover the metal lining they'd paid for was absent), to the financially gutting (Bakulich took a total of more than $16,000 from families, charging them for various bogus fees and fines as well as products, such as the metal liners, they didn't receive.) Fiona Bakulich, a former employee of Tipene Funerals (Source: 1News) The revelations of the trial were heavy, the coverage thorough and not always accurate (there were no bodies placed in rubbish bags). And while the Tipenes grappled with a sense of betrayal from someone they'd considered a sister and a tuakana, they were also subjected to harsh scrutiny and public judgement themselves. Why hadn't they seen what was going on, checked for it, acted sooner? The media asked the questions and social media scrambled to provide the answers. The comments got ugly, says Kai. 'In a way it's a good thing. It's teaching me that I don't have to please everybody. If you see the show, my husband and I are all about people pleasing.' For a business and a TV brand built on light humour, deep respect and te ao Māori, the case was a lot to come back from. ADVERTISEMENT 'When it came to the process side of things, we knew how to deal with it,' says Kaiora. 'But when it came to the emotional side of it? Nah. As a couple, 'it certainly tested us," she says. "I hope at some point we look back and go yeah well that was one ugly phase..." Francis and Kaiora Tipene gave their first interview to TVNZ's Marae. (Source: Marae) 'When your business has been misconstrued in the public eye, you are judged and you start not liking yourself and it's easy to get lost,' she says. 'You start losing control of everything. How can I give to my staff and my tamariki if I'm not right? I could feel myself crumbling and going to the person who I lean on and he was crumbling... I thought, man one of us has got to keep it together or we're both going to fall.' Kaiora is driving and talking to 1News on the phone. Later we also talked to Francis, who was no less frank. The experience was his first real insight into depression, he says. 'I never thought I'd be one of those people, in bed, close the curtains, 'don't talk to me'. But when your face is plastered in the Herald for one week straight, it's like wow... ADVERTISEMENT Francis and Kaiora Tipene with some people they met in Vanuatu. (Source: TVNZ) 'I'm grateful that my wife is such a strong lady. I look back and I'm like, why wasn't I the one keeping us going? I failed. I was like, close the curtains, turn the light off. The traditional male role is to keep the family together – I know times are changing and I don't want to get into that argument – but the public shaming, the way it was reported, it was devastating.' Along with friends and whanau, it was the Tipene Funerals staff who saved Francis. 'My staff were like, 'why do you always go missing every time something [negative is written] about you? Forget it! You were the one who put yourself on TV. 'The staff were cruel but it was what I needed. Obviously, my wife was saying the same thing, but sometimes it takes someone else.' The power of a suit One day, after a month of lying around in shorts and a T-shirt, Francis felt the urge to put on a suit. 'Because I felt like a nothing. Then I also put my shoes on and thought, 'bugger it I'll drive to work'. At the funeral home there was a grieving family and Frances was asked to do a prayer. It made him feel human again. 'Because I'd been feeling like the devil, stuck at home in bed.' So their work as funeral directors continued, but what about the show? Would there be another season of the internationally successful Casketeers? ADVERTISEMENT There would. The seventh season launches on Wednesday and takes a fresh form with the Casketeers travelling around the world, learning how other cultures deal with death. For the emotionally struggling Tipenes, it was a tonic. 'The production company were so understanding,' says Kaiora. 'They'd say 'today's newspapers are tomorrow's fish 'n' chip papers!'.' Kaiora and Francis Tipene in Canada. (Source: Supplied) Canada, India, Vanuatu, Japan and – most meaningfully for Francis – Tonga. He'd never been there but his grandparents on his dad's side were both Tongan. And although he says the flavour of his upbringing leaned more Māori, the island of his ancestors felt familiar. 'It was eerily similar to the way I was brought up, up North, making do with what we had out in the yard. My kids don't do that, everyone is on the blimmin wi-fi...I had a nostalgic feeling watching the children making fun out of branches and bits of plastic. Everyone is so happy among all this... I wouldn't actually call it poverty, it looks poor to us, but they are happy and content, that's how I was as a kid. It felt like home.' 'The anger comes in my quiet times' Each time the Tipenes were about to head off with the TV crew for another three-week trip, leaving their six boys with trusted whanau and taking Ngawaiata with them, Francis would worry. 'You're always thinking, what is the point of this when all of this other stuff is going down? This mistake by one person has ruined us. But the minute we stepped onto the plane we forgot about it. You fly off and it's an adventure.' ADVERTISEMENT Then you fly home, and hell awaits? 'Oh yes,' says Francis. 'I'd hear 'prepare the cabin for landing', and I'd think, oh gosh, here we go.' Even now, he wrestles with uncomfortable emotions. The depression has gone but bouts of anger have taken its place. 'When you're made out to be someone you're not and you have to wait until it's all over for the truth to come out. The anger comes in my quiet times. I'm sitting there eating lunch and, oh, I'm angry again.' The cure, he says, is deep breaths and taking a walk. 'You think what the heck is a walk going to do? It does a lot.' And then there are the kids. 'They don't care, they've got basketball, rugby... that's helped us move forward.' Ngawaiata has been a beautiful distraction through most of the ordeal - she was born five weeks early in 2023, the evening her parents returned from a painful meeting with one of the families affected by Bakulich's crimes. 'When she arrived things had broken out and we knew what was going on,' says Francis. 'She was the light for us and she still is to this day.' ADVERTISEMENT The Casketeers: Life and Death Around the Globe, premieres 7.30pm, Wednesday, June 11, TVNZ 1 and TVNZ+.
Otago Daily Times
12 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Stories from the heartwood
A new collection of short writing doubles down on language, Tom McKinlay writes. A well known whakataukī (proverb) could very well stand as the guiding principal for a new collection of writing. The whakataukī "Ruia taitea kia tū ko taikākā anake" can be understood as "only the strong survive", but more literally translates as "Strip off the sapwood so the heartwood remains". Ruia (strip away), taitea (sapwood), tū (remain), taikākā (heartwood), anake (only). All 100 of the contributors to Short Poto achieved just that, meeting the book's requirement to come in at under 300 words — not a splinter more. And appropriately enough, the whakataukī also gets an outing in one of the book's entries, Jessica Hinerangi's small story Horse girls . At least it does in the te reo Māori translation ( Kōhine hōiho ). Because each of the contributions here appears twice — on facing pages. On the left in English, on the right in te reo Māori. The whakataukī is not used in full in Horse girls/Kōhine hōiho , rather the translator has adapted it to Hinerangi's narrative. The line in Horse girls , as written by Hinerangi, is "... to exist as a myth and shed all sides of the self?". The protagonist in Hinerangi's story becomes one with the horse she is riding, "a wisp of racing smoke", shedding all that is extraneous to that purpose. So, the translation for Kōhine hōiho is "kua ruia katoatia ngā taitea o te tinana". Ruia katoatia (shed completely), ngā taitea (sapwood), o te tinana (of the body). It's a translation, but more than that, it shifts the action of Hinerangi's story into te ao Māori. That's the job of the translator, says Assoc Prof Hone Morris — who oversaw the work of translating the stories in Short Poto , including Horse girls — not just to translate the English into gramatically correct te reo Māori, but to express the thought in an authentically reo Māori way. "There's an English mind and a Māori mind," Prof Morris says. "And some translations, they might be Māori words, but the thinking behind it is English." This then was the considerable challenge Prof Morris and his 10-strong team of translators faced in Short Poto (subtitle "The big book of small stories: Iti te kupu, nui te kōrero"), the new collection edited by Dunedin-based Michelle Elvy and Kiri Piahana-Wong (Ngāti Ranginui). Each translation needed to be not only faithful to the collection's enormous variety of styles and voices but also render the myriad imagery in a Māori way. The book is a celebration of spare, condensed focus, across its mix of flash fiction, prose poetry and creative non-fiction but also very deliberately designed as a resource for learners of te reo Māori — so they can read the English and see how the same idea might be expressed in te reo. Elvy says she started thinking about developing such a resource some years ago. "I started thinking that the small form, a story on a page, it's the perfect model for learning a language," she says. The idea was informed by her own experiences in multilingualism, as someone who has lived in countries with various mother tongues, learning them as she went. Resident now in Aotearoa since 2008, Elvy has long championed micro and flash fiction, editing the literary journal Flash Frontier and organising the country's National Flash Fiction Day — and saw the opportunity the form offered as an educational tool. "You know, you go back to those school years that we all had where you learn French or German or Spanish, and you might read the text side by side at some point, because you start to see how phrases form, how language is not a word-for-word translation, but it's about the rhythm and the way an idea is captured, certainly in something poetic," she says. "So, I started to think, gosh, we should have something like this in New Zealand. It would be fantastic. Because, also, so many more people that I knew all around me, including myself, were starting to learn this language, because we realised it's something we need to do." Hinerangi's piece, that reads like a memoir, started life in a collection of her poetry. Other pieces among the 100 range from satire and political commentary to slithers and slices of the everyday, from humorous to sobering. Robert Sullivan teaches a lesson in New Zealand's colonial history in fewer than 200 words, in his prose poem Pupurangi Shelley (it references Ozymadias ). Pūpū rangi are kauri snails, and Sullivan's snail journeys to the battleground New World (Ao Hou) supermarkets of Pukehinahina, Ruapekapeka and Ōhaeawai "teaching our kids about their history" (hei whakaako i ā tātou tamariki i tō rātou hītori). Pupurangi Shelley is from Sullivan's Ockham-nominated collection Hopurangi — Songcatcher . The translation leans into Sullivan's telling by rendering "wind" as "Tāwhirimātea". "I miss most my kauri trees with their big trunks that sing with the wind ..." becomes "Ko te mea e tino aroha ana ahau ko ōku rākau kauri me ngā tīwai kaitā e toiere ana me Tāwhirimātea". "I think that goes with the whole essence of the spirit of the story," Prof Morris says. "By using that personified form of natural energy." Elvy's own piece of short writing in the collection is Tussock/Hinarepe , in which a mother and child visit Central's stark landscape. Her line "She looks across the land" becomes "Ka kai ōna mata ki te whenua", literally, her eyes (mata) eat (kai) the land (whenua). You'll find that saying a lot in mōteatea, Prof Morris says, the ancient songs, many of which were collected by Apirana Ngata. "You'll find that, e kai ō mata, e kai ō mata, feast your eyes there." The translation team will also have reached for the traditional language of whaikōrero (oratory) and karanga (calls of welcome) to find the appropriate phrases, he says. For Elvy, beyond the pleasure of publishing a book in the two languages, it has been the excitement of seeing the ways in which these short forms are evolving and finding favour. In 2018 she edited a collection of flash fiction and its sister forms called Bonsai , with Frankie McMillan and James Norcliffe, and has been thinking about how this new collection compares, what's changed in terms of the subject matter and how it represents who we are. "I think you have a really diverse set of stories with this book, and I think it holds up as an incredible representation of the small form." Among the things Elvy likes is the blurring between the various forms the writers are using. "That's the other thing about flash fiction that I really love, that line between poetry and short fiction is very fine, and sometimes hard to define. Sometimes we can't define it." David Eggleton, whose evocative Perfume/Whakakakara also appears in Short Poto , is a good example of that, she says. Elvy is working across these languages in other ways. Her journal Flash Frontier takes a theme for each issue, and for July it will be "Stars / Ngā Whetū" — a special winter edition, with works in English and te reo Māori. "We really want to use the small form to keep sharing this idea that the language can be learned, it can be accessible," she says. Elvy is also pleased with the timing of the book's appearance in Aotearoa New Zealand, when here as elsewhere culture is under attack and te reo Māori has become a target. "I think a book like this has importance in terms of not just the beauty of literature and language but making a statement," she says. "I had this idea three years ago and it was a completely different set of ideas that drove me at first. But now that it's out, the timing of it could not be more right." The book • Short | Poto: The big book of small stories | Iti te kupu, nui te kōrero , edited by Michelle Elvy and Kiri Piahana-Wong, published by Massey University Press, is out on Thursday. Pupurangi Shelley Robert Sullivan I am a kauri snail kaitiaki, look on my green spiral shell, ye mighty, and despair. I admit I've eaten noke or native worm sushi but I am a hundred millimetres long and move at 0.013 m/s through the Whirinaki, the Tai Tokerau, Waitākere and Kaimai ranges to reside outside New World Gate Pā, Pak'nSave Ruapekapeka and the Ōhaeawai Four Square, teaching our kids their history at 2 a.m., or thereabouts, distributing udon noodles from the dumpsters so our kids can save the noke. I miss most my kauri trees with their big trunks that sing with the wind and admit they stretch taller than my tall tentacles. I tell the tamariki our whānau whakapapa goes for 200 million years beyond the Treaty of Waitangi and James Busby picked up our tūpuna in a tentacular blink twice giving us his surname, Paryphanta Busbyi Busbyi, making it all about him. Aroha mai, sorry, I must eat and run. Pūpū rangi Shelley Nā Robert Sullivan He pūpū rangi, he kaitiaki ahau, titiro mai ki taku anganga kākāriki e tōrino nei, e mārohirohi mā, me tō aurere. Āe, kua kaingia e au te noke, me kī, te sushi noke māori, heoi, kotahi rau mitamano taku roa, e 0.013 mitamano/hēkona te tere o te kōneke i ngā pae maunga o Whirinaki, o Te Tai Tokerau, o Waitākere o Kaimai hoki kia noho ki waho o Ao Hou i Pukehinahina, o Pak'nSave i Ruapekapeka, me te Four Square i Ōhaeawai, hei whakaako i ā tātou tamariki i tō rātou hītori i te 2 karaka, i taua takiwā pea, kia tuari atu i ngā kihu parāoa udon mai i ngā ipupara nui kia ora ai i ā tātou tamariki te noke. Ko te mea e tino aroha ana ahau ko ōku rākau kauri me ngā tīwai kaitā e toiere ana me Tāwhirimātea, āe, ko tōna tāroaroa ka toro ake i ōku ake kawekawe roroa. Ka kī atu au ki ngā tamariki nō ngā 200 miriona tau i tua atu o Te Tiriti o Waitangi tō mātou nei whakapapa, ā, nā Te Pūhipi ō mātou tūpuna i rarau atu i tētahi kimo kawekawe rā me te tapa mai ki tōna ake ingoa whānau, ko Paryphanta Busbyi Busbyi, hei whakamana i a ia anō. Aroha mai, me kai au, me kōneke atu. Short | Poto: The big book of small stories | Iti te kupu, nui te kōrero , edited by Michelle Elvy and Kiri Piahana-Wong, Massey University Press. Pupurangi Shelley was previously published in Hopurangi — Songcatcher: Poems from the Maramataka (AUP, 2024).
Scoop
a day ago
- Scoop
ALIEN WEAPONRY & Lamb Of God's Randy Blythe Fight The System In New Music Video For 'Taniwha'
New Zealand's ALIEN WEAPONRY recently released their head-turning third album, Te Rā, via Napalm Records! Swiftly, following the announcement of their upcoming USA tour supporting Avatar with fellow openers SpiritWorld, the band has dropped a brand new music video for album single 'Taniwha', featuring an intense guest appearance from metal icon Randy Blythe (Lamb Of God). In the video, the modern groove metal trio find themselves face to face with puppet masters of corporate greed and overconsumption, providing a thought-provoking backdrop to one of the album's most aggressive, death-metal leaning offerings. " We are super excited to share something we have been working on for a while. We felt honored to have the opportunity to collaborate with the mighty Randy Blythe on our song 'Taniwha'; off of our latest album, so it only made sense to have him be a part of the music video too! We wanted to create something special for this one, and we are stoked with how it turned out!" ALIEN WEAPONRY have solidified themselves as one of the greatest young metal bands of their generation with renewed musical tenacity and crucial messaging. Since releasing their acclaimed debut Tū (2018), the band have been lauded for their kinetic presence and sound, as well as their vital blend of culturally profound lyricism in both English and te reo Māori, the indigenous language of New Zealand. With their third full-length album, ALIEN WEAPONRY expand on their hallmark messages of cultural, societal and environmental resilience while delivering their most massive-sounding, focused musical output ever. In the hands of veteran producer/mixer Josh Wilbur (Lamb Of God, Gojira, Megadeth), Te Rā's gnashing blend of groove, nu, math and thrash metal shines with anthemic choruses and refreshed technical skill. Te Rā is a bold, unwavering cry for a future in which we can all take part in the legacy of people like the Māori and others all around us – people who, if they aren't seen, most certainly need to be heard! Taken as a whole, Te Rā grapples with what it's like to be caught in the pull of divergent cultures – not just for the descendants of colonized people, but for all of us.
