The Listener 2025 collection: Our most popular stories on politics and the politics of modern life

Ten feature stories which reflect the politics of life in NZ today.

Greg Dixon’s Another Kind of Politics: The 2025 Drunken Muldoon Awards

Greg Dixon runs a satirical eye over the year in local and international politics.

Danyl McLauchlan’s annual awards for political bravery & buffoonery

Who deserves the top gongs in the Listener’s 2025 political awards?

Greg Dixon’s Another Kind of Politics: Willis to defend Heartless Tory Finance Minister title in “Grumble in the Jungle”

Greg Dixon runs a satirical eye over the week in local and international politics.

Could this be New Zealand's next big sport?

A growing international sport we’re actually quite good at could do with wider exposure.

Charlotte Grimshaw: Reflections on being at Bondi Beach

News coverage showed brutal slaughter: beautiful Bondi was a giant crime scene.

Russell Brown looks back at the year that was 2026

2026 was not the year it was predicted to be.

Pauline Hanson’s resurgence is an indication of deeper threats in Australia

Pauline Hanson continues to cash in on anti-migrant and anti-net-zero populism.

A very forgettable country: Why is NZ missing from so many world maps?

NZ's absence from world maps is a veritable phenomenon.

Listener weekly quiz: January 14

Test your general knowledge with the Listener’s weekly quiz.

The Listener’s annual sports quiz

How many sporting moments from 2025 can you recall?

Joy ride: Our tribute to Kiwi classic cars, Mark II

Owners whose enthusiasm for old cars defies modern conventions like comfort & performance.

Can rats play video games? A ongoing study says yes

The 1990s game, Doom, has attracted some unusual players.

Still safe to eat? Questions about growing amount of imported frozen vegetables answered

Frozen vegetables are increasingly being packaged in NZ using imported ingredients.

Peter Griffin: The risky business of private health data online

Digital health isn’t a luxury any more, it’s an essential part of modern medicine.

Study shows brains mature early, driving judgment doesn’t

We may have all the grey matter we get by our teens but that doesn’t make us good drivers.

Steve Braunias: My six mostly unrealistic New Year’s Resolutions

Quitter's Day was last week, meaning many have now abandoned their New Year resolutions.

The Good Life: The measurement of happiness

Taking pleasure in the simple things during the summer break.

Surprise packets: Three delicious recipes from Ottolinghi collaborator Helen Goh

Helen Goh's latest book draws on Asian and Middle Eastern flavours.

Weekend wine guide: NZ winemakers meet popular demand in a canny move

Convenience, portability and compact serves explains the latest boom behind tinned wine.

Musical chemistry: Cellist Martin Smith joins a Kiwi cultural institution

Smith is a new addition to the NZ String Quartet in time for the Adam festival.

Top seed: Nick Cave’s musical mate Warren Ellis

A mad chat with Ellis, who almost died in NZ just as he started life as a Bad Seed.

The year in classical music

Richard Betts on the year's best concerts and albums.

Opera singer Morag Atchison swings from choral work to a tango-based mass

Well-known for her singer, Morag Atchison may don her dancing shoes for upcoming show.

Video Q&A with Don McGlashan: “My yacht doesn’t actually have an anchor”

Some supplementary questions for the songwriter in the wake of the doco about his life.

Songwriter Don McGlashan looks back at his life in insightful doco

Anchor Me: Engaging, informative and entertaining look at a national treasure.

Hamnet won big at the Golden Globes, so how good is it?

A sweet sorrow: Listener film reviewer Sarah Watt on the Golden Globes best drama film.

Local folkie Tom Cunliffe’s latest offers poetic songs of thoughtful introspection

New releases from Tom Cunliffe and Great Barrier reviewed.

You are definitely not here: YouTube’s Map Men on modern navigation, charting a new course and the joy of getting lost

Paper maps are fading into obscurity as we turn to GPS, but both can lead us astray.

A very forgettable country: Why is NZ missing from so many world maps?

NZ's absence from world maps is a veritable phenomenon.

The NZ books you’ll want to read this year

Listener books editor Mark Broatch on the local titles to look out for this year.

First-class novels, gripping thrillers and mind-expanding nonfiction: What you’ll want to read this year

Make space for the most eagerly awaited books of 2026.

Milk, Madness and Mayhem: The Ruahine Triple Axe Murders

Was it an act of temporary, alcohol-induced madness? Or plain bloody murder?

The Listener 2025 collection: Our most popular crime writing

From contemporary court cases to historic murders, 2025's best read crime stories.

Steve Braunias on the sentencing of the mother responsible for the ‘suitcase murders’

Mercy for Hakyung Lee was bartered for at sentencing.

Foreigner, bigamist, killer: The wild life and dubious conviction of a colonial double murderer

Faced with a double murder that rocked colonial NZ, police were quick to find a suspect.

Through the lens: 2025 remembered in pictures

Images from a year in which havoc ensued but we still found light relief.

Pauline Hanson’s resurgence is an indication of deeper threats in Australia

Pauline Hanson continues to cash in on anti-migrant and anti-net-zero populism.

Lives in a holding pattern: Syrian refugees face going home to renewed violence and a devastated economy

Those who fled civil war are increasingly unwelcome in the countries that took them in.

Jonathan Kronstadt: Gen Z don’t have the luxury of the idleness and mindlessness that marked my own 20s

Today, the kids are alright.

Last chance to subscribe to listener.co.nz in our Black Friday special

Special Black Friday offer

See the world anew when science, art and nature converge in Te Papa’s Breathe | Mauri Ora

Te Papa’s new experience is at the cutting edge of technology and immersive art practice.

This Titirangi home was transformed into a functional family home

A mid-century Auckland home is reconfigured to make it more functional for a young family

This contemporary Redcliffs home maximises its view of the estuary

A home on a Christchurch estuary provides its owner with an outlook that’s always changing