Weekly video commentary on New Zealand politics. Heavy on context, light on outrage, allergic to spin. We read the 400-page report so you can keep pretending you did.
This is what Counterspun is going to be: weekly video commentary on New Zealand politics, heavy on context, light on outrage. Watch the trailer, judge us accordingly, and subscribe so the first episode finds you.
Narendra Modi makes the first Indian prime ministerial visit in 40 years. The Foreign Minister, a vocal critic of the free trade deal, will be elsewhere. The PM says this is fine.
Asked about compulsory pay gap reporting, the National leader said it was worth a conversation. The conversation has not been scheduled and no minutes will be taken.
More than 20 employers were fined by staff who lacked the authority to fine anyone. The money is being returned with the department's compliments and the paperwork now in order.
An 80-hour urgency sprint pushed 23 bills through 36 stages. Officials insist the laws were read, possibly even by the people voting on them.
Corporate tax came in $700 million above forecast, which the Government says reflects an improving economy. Households are invited to feel the improvement at their earliest convenience.
Councils must now justify their traffic cones on a risk basis. NZTA says the approach has already saved $46 million, raising questions about what the cones were earning before.
Written explainers and context pieces for when fourteen minutes of video wasn't enough rope.
Counterspun Media is an independent, one-desk operation covering New Zealand politics on video, from Aotearoa, on a weekly schedule the news cycle has so far declined to respect. There is no newsroom, no panel of six people talking over a host, and no mystery funders. There is a camera, a desk, and a reading pile that does not observe weekends.
The method is not complicated. We read the reports, the bills and the transcripts, then say what is actually in them, calmly, with sources cited on screen. Where we editorialise, we label it. Where we get something wrong, we say so in public and leave the correction up. In the current media environment this apparently qualifies as a radical publishing model.
We are not affiliated with any political party, and after this much Question Time, increasingly unaffiliated with the concept of political parties.