Every weekday, The Detail makes sense of the big news stories.
This week, the invisible killer that is air pollution, New Zealand's lackadaisical approach to immigration, tiny Warkworth's stratospheric industrial feat, the impasse over a unique oceanfront walkway, and a peek behind the orange curtain into the mammoth logistical task of running elections.
Whakarongo mai to any episodes you might have missed.
When breathing kills
"There's nothing more essential for life than air.
"And yet, because of air pollution, the simple act of breathing contributes to more than seven million deaths a year."
A 2023 report found that particulate matter from heavy industry was causing at least 13 additional premature deaths in Mount Maunganui each year. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
That's a direct quote from the World Health Organisation's director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, updating us on the latest global report on how dangerous that pollution is.
It's not good news.
Newsroom's Marc Daalder has investigated the figures since a big study centred on New Zealand came out in July last year. He speaks to Sharon Brettkelly.
Our messy migration
Statistics New Zealand's most recent figures show that in the year to July, migrant arrivals were 208,400, up 212 percent, while migrant departures were 112,200, up 38 percent.
"Why does it take 53 months for a residence application made by a victim of domestic violence to be processed? There's lots of areas where you've just got to ask, 'why are we allowing that to carry on?'" Photo: 123rf
That means annual net migration is a gain of 96,200: "the highest on record for an annual period", Stats NZ says.
"Immigration New Zealand is a black hole. It is opaque," RNZ business editor Gyles Beckford says.
"There's little coherence about immigration policy, I think. A lot of it is knee-jerk, it is short-termism – the thinking that goes behind it is not connected."
Sharon Brettkelly speaks to Beckford and immigration lawyer Aaron Martin.
Warkworth's seamless manufacturing change
Garry Clark has made war ships, superyachts, hovercraft and sonar domes.
Only last week he and his workmates were building high-tech racing boats.
Now, in a simple shed inside a shed in the same Warkworth factory north of Auckland, the leading hand composite technician is building a rocket.
The Rocket Lab control room in Mt Wellington, Auckland. Photo: Sharon Brettkelly
"Rocket Lab taking over? Best thing that can happen to us, it's fantastic news," says Clark. "It's long term employment, you've got exciting projects to work on, it's perfect."
It's all come about after Sir Russell Coutts sold his SailGP Technologies racing boat manufacturing complex to Rocket Lab, shifting his operation to the northern hemisphere to be closer to the racing events.
With the complex comes all the high-tech composite machinery – and more than 50 workers with specialised skills in building with carbon composites.
Sharon Brettkelly takes a tour of the 6,500 square metre site in Warkworth as it makes the speedy transition from boat building to rocket building, and we go inside Rocket Lab's Auckland plant to see how they make and fit tens of thousands of components to a rocket.
The storm over a washed-out walkway
Walk along the waterfront between Milford and Takapuna on Auckland's North Shore and you'll see volcanic fossils, impossibly shaped lava rocks, panoramic views of Rangitoto Island and the Hauraki Gulf...
... and a fence blocking the path, cutting it off to hundreds of walkers, runners and explorers.
The owners of a property by a walkway from Takapuna to Milford have put up a fence because of a council dispute. Photo: Tom Kitchin/The Detail
For nearly two weeks now the owners of an historic heritage listed property have blocked off the walkway – their trump card in a battle with Auckland Council over restrictive rules that could be costing them millions.
Tom Kitchin talks to a city councillor and a lawyer representing the property owner about what's happened here, and what needs to happen to resolve the situation.
Behind the polling booths
It'll be fresh in your mind: all we have to do is wander down to a polling booth, make a couple of ticks on a ballot paper and drop it in a box.
Ayn Lee Perez is an issuing officer at the voting booth at the Pakuranga Plaza. Photo: Sharon Brettkelly
But clearly there's a lot more to running an election than our small part in it.
Planning starts two years out, means employing 25,000 people, finding venues for 2,300 election day polling booths, and costs $144 million to run.
Sharon Brettkelly headed out to a polling booth in the Auckland suburb of Pakuranga and talks to the workers there about what they do, and their reasons for taking the job.
Long Read: Is film criticism a blessing or a curse?
This is The Detail's Long Read – one in-depth story read by us every weekend.
"It should go without saying that having a negative opinion about something popular is allowed. But a few years ago, in the fever swamp of internet reckons, people started to opine, rather gleefully, that it wasn’t ‘needed’ anymore." Photo: 123RF
This week, it's music and culture writer Tony Stamp reading his latest Webworm column, Totally Normal.
It's called 'Is Film Criticism A Blessing Or A Curse?', and he joins Alexia Russell to wade into what some are calling "the death of media literacy".
In August, the New York Times published an article about MovieTok, a new school of TikTok-based film reviewers who shun the word ‘critic’. To them, the old school was “snobby” and untrustworthy. They, conversely, were true fans.
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