At Large with Toby Manhire

The Opportunity Party has made history by breaking into parliament. Three years ago, Qiulae Wong couldn’t have fathomed the idea of leading such a project.Her team broke out the champagne at their Eden Park celebration on Saturday night. Less than 48 hours later, it’s getting real. With the numbers still not locked and specials still to count, where is her head at, which options are on the table, and has Christopher Luxon called yet?At Large with Toby Manhire is produced by Te Aihe Butler, Bridget Mills, Zoe Madden-Smith and The Spinoff. Read more at ⁠thespinoff.co.nz⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the campaign hours tick down, a pantheon of the Spinoff’s brightest gather at the roundtable to sum it all up. What were the most memorable moments, the characters, and the words of the campaign? Lyric Waiwiri-Smith, Hayden Donnell, Liam Rātana and Joel MacManus join Toby to revisit the highlights and lowlights, and square up for a Dragons’-Den-esque showdown to convince you which electorate race will be the most exciting on Saturday night. Vote in the comments! Plus: how are we all doing on the mojo-meter, and our predictions on the number of overhang seats for the next parliament. At Large with Toby Manhire is produced by Te Aihe Butler, Zoe Madden-Smith and The Spinoff. Read more at ⁠thespinoff.co.nz⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The opinion polls are coming thick and fast in the final days of the 2026 NZ election campaign. But when two emerge at the same time delivering markedly different results, should we be sceptical about the story they tell? Murray Campbell of The Research Association of New Zealand joins Toby to discuss the varying methods for collecting opinion data, the processes by which that information is weighted, and what the margin of error can and can’t tell us.Plus: are the media fairly presenting the results, what are the challenges with electorate polls, including Māori seats, what to make of brands like Infrastructure NZ and the Taxpayers’ Union bankrolling polls, and what is the deal with Curia withdrawing from the pollsters’ association?At Large with Toby Manhire is produced by Te Aihe Butler, Zoe Madden-Smith and The Spinoff. Read more at ⁠thespinoff.co.nz⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Māori electorates are always exciting but this time it’s really edge-of-the-seat. TVNZ Māori affairs correspondent Te Aniwa Hurihanganui joins Toby to walk through the electorate, and explain why Te Tai Tokerau is the pick of the bunch. Plus: the issues and personalities dominating the debate among Māori, and reflections on the kaupapa Māori debate, which Hurihanganui chaired with Scotty Morrison. At Large with Toby Manhire is produced by Te Aihe Butler, Zoe Madden-Smith and The Spinoff. Read more at ⁠thespinoff.co.nz⁠. Support our mahi by joining Spinoff Members: https://thespinoff.co.nz/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With just over a week to the election, the Labour leader is in with a shot of becoming the first New Zealander since Keith Holyoake to serve non-consecutive terms as prime minister. In the latest of our leader interviews, he defends an approach criticised for its small target and lack of boldness, discusses the impact of overhang and legitimacy, and reveals how embracing the philosophy of stoicism has changed his life.At Large with Toby Manhire is produced by Te Aihe Butler, Zoe Madden-Smith and The Spinoff. Read more at ⁠thespinoff.co.nz⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In March 2024 Chlöe Swarbrick became co-leader of the Greens – right in the middle of what can only be described as a crisis year for the party. Today, they’ve jumped to around 15% in polling, and Swarbrick is under intense fire from Nicola Willis and the incumbent coalition. So how did they turn it around, do the Greens’ economic prescriptions hold up to scrutiny, and could they really work coherently with Labour?At Large with Toby Manhire is produced by Te Aihe Butler, Zoe Madden-Smith and The Spinoff. Read more at ⁠thespinoff.co.nz⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Across 12 years as Act leader, David Seymour has taken the party from 0.5% to two terms with a decent sized caucus and 18 months in the role of deputy prime minister. He goes into the 2026 election presenting as the stable leg of the coalition tripod, but how does that square with the scenes sparked by his treaty principles bill and this new focus on “one law for all”? In the latest of our leader series for At Large, Seymour tells Toby whether he still thinks people who didn’t get enrolled are “dropkicks”, Epsom and the overhang strategy, how he’s got on working with Winston Peters, whom he once called a “clown”, Adam Smith and Pharmac. At Large with Toby Manhire is produced by Te Aihe Butler, Bridget Mills and The Spinoff. Read more at ⁠thespinoff.co.nz⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At its fourth time of trying, the Opportunity Party is on track for something unprecedented: making it to parliament. And a massive part of that is down to its new leader: Qiulae Wong. What is she doing differently? How does the party, with its powerful board, work? Is it really a party of change? What does she say to the allegations from former members about a “toxic” culture? And has she even met Gareth Morgan? Wong sits down with Toby for the latest At Large leader interview.At Large with Toby Manhire is produced by Te Aihe Butler, Zoe Madden-Smith and The Spinoff. Read more at ⁠thespinoff.co.nz⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Advertising campaigns are meant to capture the popular imagination, just not like this. A bank called Kiwi, a green sheep called Buck and giddy humans combined over recent days to create a strange fable for our times. Hayden Donnell joins Toby to walk us through the story that went from a pocket of the internet, via his post for the Spinoff (headline: “Kiwibank is desperately trying to stop people saying they want to f*** its sheep mascot”) and all the way to the John Oliver show.Plus: Lyric Waiwiri-Smith steps off the big pink bus to lay down the gauntlet in How Good, asking should huge campaign vehicles in fact be obligatory?At Large with Toby Manhire is produced by Te Aihe Butler, Zoe Madden-Smith and The Spinoff. Read more at ⁠thespinoff.co.nz⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ali Mau first appeared on New Zealand screens more than three decades ago. She went on to run, for five years, the #MeTooNZ project for Stuff. Last year she published No Words for This – an autobiography the Spinoff called “gripping and revelatory”. Last month, after years of work, Mau and lawyer Zoë Lawton pressed go on Tika: a globally pioneering online service for survivors of sexual harm that joins the dots between survivors. What are the experiences that led to creating this technology? How does Tika work? And – a few weeks in – what has been the volume of response been so far? And as images from the Cornell Seven and elsewhere flood our feeds, how does she assess the state of media and the legal system 10 years on from the advent of #MeToo? At Large with Toby Manhire is produced by Te Aihe Butler, Bridget Mills, Zoe Madden-Smith and The Spinoff. Read more at ⁠thespinoff.co.nz⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices