The past 16 years or so have given Crikey a very clear idea of the distinct stages of a leadership coup. Let's see how Andrew Hastie's recent activity lines up.

Better check the On-o-meter to see how high the readings are for a libspill This is also your periodical reminder to check your smoke alarm batteries

Bad roads and irregular ferries used to regularly hold up election results from the sort of small polling booths that now report first. But the Eden-Monaro returning officer who entered flood water so fifty people could vote was made of sterner stuff.

What strikes me is that it gives the lie to insistence in Aus/NZ that extending 3-year terms will in some way improve decision-making and political discourse. The UK has 5-year terms, a length few people in Aus/NZ would find acceptable, and they're already obsessing about the next election

Ah man, as a wean he was the first umpire I knew by name. Helluva knock at 92; I guess somebody finally gave him out LBW?

This is a great read. Love the last question. #nzpol Four departing mayors tell us what they really think thespinoff.co.nz/politics/23-...

The curdling of #WestWingSyndrome in Australian media is shown by the fact most (all?) of the main news sites are giving coverage with a live link on the home page to that funeral in the USA of the guy that most Australians could not have named weeks ago.

Intercity night train (technically it is: this A-series EMU is on a 19-minute journey from a station in the City of Canning to a station in the City of Perth)

Queen. Lots and lots of Queen. Luckily I like Queen (if the question was about my mum, the answer would be Talking Heads and Dire Straits, and again fortunately I enjoy both; my mum developed a lifelong hatred of Johnny Cash thanks to her own father's music choices)

I enjoyed this piece on Christchurch's 1960s motorway-that-nearly-was. One detail stood out to me: opponents to ramming a motorway through Hagley Park were dismissed as "nostalgic obstructionists", a strategy also used to condemn the supporters of passenger rail every time a service was cancelled

A good example of how Vic Park is failing to help end unsustainable sprawl: a house was recently demolished beside a stop for a high-freq bus route and a 5-min walk from Coles. I was excited to see what apartments would go up Another single-family house has replaced it, but w/ two storeys this time

Born to live in an apartment and spend Sunday afternoon sitting on my balcony reading, sipping on a nice drink, and gazing out at the wider world Cursed to live in Perth’s ever-sprawling suburbia in a freestanding house picking weeds from the backyard I don’t even want

It’s just over nine months until Te Huia’s five year trial comes to an end in mid-2026. There’s lots to be done to secure it as a permanent service between Auckland and Hamilton. Read on for what this involves. open.substack.com/pub/adventur...

“MetService has recorded a 224km/h gust at Mt Hutt Summit, Canterbury overnight. It says the station stopped recording after the gust.” I guess that weather station is now somewhere closer to the base of Mt Hutt

nobody knows about files and folders anymore

The historian's historian, the author who made me think about my prose more than any other, the writer who could say in a sentence what I need a paragraph to express, is Stuart Macintyre So often I look at my drafts, or proofread those of friends who studied with him, and think "that's Stuartesque"

Oooooh WE ARE THE PRIDE OF BRISBANE TOWN—!

I recently learnt of the existence of "vertical drama" (short episodes filmed to be viewed in portrait mode) and everybody involved should be ashamed of themselves

Peekaboo

What the absolute fuck is this Also, I still cannot understand how Bill Shorten has not been widely condemned as ratting on the labour movement for taking up a managerial position where he sits in opposition to the union (also looking at you Grant Robertson at Otago)

I was nervous heading into the RWC semi as I thought Canada were more likely to win than NZ, but I did not expect the Black Ferns to be outplayed so thoroughly. Canada's first 60 minutes were near-to-perfect rugby. Hope they go on to beat England next week (let's be real, France won't win tonight)

Absolute scandal that the Takahē has never won Bird of the Year. Let this be the year it does!

This is esp incomprehensible from an Aus/NZ perspective, since we inherited Westminster parliamentary democracy from the Poms and the two largest parties in each country would roll their leaders long before recording any poll result of ***16%*** Anyway, hope the Lib Dems poast Ed Davey to being PM

This nickname is beyond be-leaf

at one point Albania was on the brink of civil war after the collapse of pyramid schemes that had sucked up roughly half of GDP, and now that is only the *second* stupidest thing the country has done.

"macrohard" jesus fucking christ

Takahē is in the top ten mix! Vote vote vote and let's finally get the roundest borb onto the winner's podium as Bird of the Year: www.birdoftheyear.org.nz

Really hope a new operator takes this on, as I didn’t have the opportunity to ride it when I passed through Dargaville on a tight schedule in 2018. I’ve enjoyed the rail carts on both the old Rotorua and North Taranaki lines (though if these lines could be restored to regular ops, even better..!)

We were very pleased to get the news today that the Australian National Dictionary Centre will be saved, thanks to an anonymous donation and the halt on involuntary redundancies under the Renew ANU plan. We thank everyone for their generous support through these difficult times.

new zealand government reaching new heights of stupidity next year our public dollars will go more to AI grants ($70 million) than all investigator-initiated basic science combined ($56 million in the Marsden fund)

Holy shit, excellent news

This is insane given the US has simply atrocious turnout, struggling to crack 60% for the entire past century. Do these people seriously think 40+% of people aren't voting because the Dems are too favourable towards LGBTIQ+ causes or climate action? If so, why aren't they already voting Republican?

If the men want tallow THEY ARE TO HAVE IT! (NSW Railways, July 1892)

SA Libs have a talent pool with the depth of the residue at the bottom of a kitchen sink after you rinse a plate

Gotta love local elections!

I'm so pleased to see that New Zealand is now taking its turn to have a "they are the *plaintiff*" defamation case after all the shenanigans across the ditch in Australia with Ben Roberts-Smith's defo action

Just watched this Constitutional Clarion that I'd missed when Anne Twomey first posted it. Thankfully I hadn't come across this conspiracy theory in the wild about a "true" red Aus constitution vs a "fake" green one. Classic and utterly odd example of conspiracists imputing hidden meaning to colours

The use of tohutō (macrons) in written te reo Māori has become more widespread over time, and in 2020 they were officially adopted for Wikipedia articles relating to Aotearoa. It was the spelling of a small North Island town, Tīrau, that got things moving. Read more below ⬇️ #TeWikioTeReoMāori

200 years ago today, the first steam locomotive to be deployed onto a public railway anywhere in the world was first placed on the rails along which (11 days later) it would commence running. We can debate whether the S&D was the first or last of its kind, but it's an anniversary worth noting.

This is the thing about the Westminster system: if a PM isn't doing well, you can simply replace them. In May, Anthony Albanese became the first person to lead an Australian political party to consecutive election wins since John Howard won 2001 & 04, with 5 other PMs in between (one, Rudd, twice!)

I now understand the meaning of the name of the band Better Than Ezra

ICYMI: On Leaked Plans for Trains in Sydney

You know you're getting old when the Pope condemns some high profile sinner and you think "let him cook" instead of buying that sinner's book or album.

Remember when the AFL introduced 3 goal umpire. #AFL

Australian shitposters need, nay deserve, a new season of #libspill and all buttons must be pressed to On forthwith

The quoll has emerged from his Tasmanian den and seen the shadow of a #libspill. We will now have weeks of #itson

NSW Coalition so furious that they are miles off the pace in Kevin's not-a-poll about the worst opposition in Australia that they have returned an atrocious, farcical 41% 2PP result

The NSW locomotive inspectors of 1892 were instructed to simply get good

Keir Starmer simply must stand aside so the prime minister for posters can assume the position due to him