Shows / Gone By Lunchtime
Gone By Lunchtime
A New Zealand politics podcast hosted by The Spinoff's Toby Manhire with Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas.
Episodes
Gone By LunchtimePanic stations with a week to go?
Who says politicians don't change? Christopher Luxon revealed his evolving approach this week by breaking his habit and commenting on a poll. A poll that…
Gone By LunchtimeThe campaign has entered its ouroboros phase
Like a self-consuming serpent, the 2026 election has begun to feed on itself. With just a few days till advance voting begins, Toby Manhire, Annabelle…
Gone By LunchtimeWe are all covered in ash and yearning for the ocean
Three weeks to go and Chris Hipkins has put his finger on it: this campaign does have some of the post-apocalyptic survival energy of Cormac McCarthy's The…
Gone By LunchtimeWere we watching the same debate?
Round one of the Chris v Chris debate season played out last night on TVNZ. Ben Thomas was in the pundit capsule. Toby Manhire was in the studio. Annabelle…
Gone By LunchtimeThe debate explosion
The Kingmakers’ Debate is the highest-profile of a burst of events in the first full-throttle week of the 2026 campaign. How did the party leaders do in the…
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Why won’t Christopher Luxon go on Q+A? We asked Jack Tame
Here’s a taste of our new podcast, At Large with Toby Manhire: this week Jack Tame came in to talk about how he’s preparing to host the first leaders’ debate…
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What is this election really about?
Parliament has disgorged its politicians ahead of a Super Sunday of campaign launches, with just a month and a day until advance voting begins. Toby Manhire…
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Fifty days out, the campaign ignites
Just when you thought the two main parties were fixed on a do-little election, the National Party bursts out the triangulator and gazumps its Labour rivals…
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Only 64 more days of tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax
This just in: we have nine more weeks of this. Can National's indefatigable campaign manager Simeon Brown sustain the unremitting tax focus all the way to…
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Luxon vs Brown, and how the govt fell so violently out of love with localism
Christopher Luxon sailed into NZ politics six years ago as a champion of localism. Since becoming prime minister, his government has fallen deeply out of love…
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Post-coup chat, with guest star Chris Penk
In the nine days since he stared down his second caucus uprising within just a few months, Christopher Luxon has really bounced back. Toby Manhire, Annabelle…
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Emergency pod: Do you get déjà coup?
Christopher Luxon has survived a showdown vote in caucus, a lot like he survived a showdown vote in caucus in April. Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben…
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What is Mr Luxon doing?
It should have been a good day for the National Party. Instead, it was derailed by the latest bit of riffing by Christopher Luxon, in declaring, prompted by a…
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Someone take away Stuart Nash's phone, please
The resurrection of former Labour minister Stuart Nash has come to an end, much like Icarus, with Winston Peters accepting his resignation as a NZ First…
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Are the Oppies unstoppable?
The Opportunity Party has shot up to the threshold fun zone, with Qiulae Wong at the helm and running a line as an alternative to NZ First. Will the distaste…
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Jamboree season in an election year
Fresh from the bright lights and bitter recriminations of the National, Labour and Act party bashes, Lyric Waiwiri-Smith and Joel MacManus join Toby to reveal…
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Unhappy families
The gun for election 2026 was fired with great fury and much shrapnel on Sunday, with National campaign manager Simeon Brown sparing almost no one. Annabelle…
Gone By LunchtimeAt Large with Toby Manhire: Britain’s great big prime minister problem, continued
Keir Starmer has walked out from Downing Street and said it’s all over, meaning Andy Burnham is almost certain to be the next UK PM, the seventh since 2016…
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Hardcore lobbying and the emotional senior staffer
The story of Mike Smith's climate court action, the parliamentary response, and hard-copy briefings from lobbyists that went mysteriously missing has…
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Budget special with Bernard Hickey
Bernard dashes out of the lockup to patch in to the studio and talk through with Toby the top lines from today's budget, the rosy economic forecasts on which…
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Live at Auckland Writers Festival with Tova O'Brien guest star
In a special six-months-to-the-election edition, Toby, Annabelle and Ben, joined by a special surprise guest who may or may not be the brilliant Tova O'Brien…
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Jane Wrightson on Super squabbles, Seymour and the state of the media
In a special edition of Gone By Lunchtime, Toby talks to Jane Wrightson, who is retiring after two terms as retirement commissioner. She shares her thoughts on…
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Asher Emanuel on The Valley: the book everyone, politicians especially, should read in 2026
In a bonus episode of Gone By Lunchtime, Toby Manhire talks to Asher Emanuel, author of The Valley: Crime and Punishment in a New Zealand City. A gripping…
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The deepest breach in the Luxon coalition, and a National reboot
Messages suggesting the prime minister sought to support the US-Israel attacks on Iran landed with more than one explosion. Not only did it undermine Luxon’s…
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Luxon stares down rebel moan squad across 100 white-knuckle hours
On Friday morning a bombshell report revealed a group of unnamed National MPs questioning Christopher Luxon's leadership, with the chief whip, Stuart Smith…
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The force majeure election
Donald Trump has gone within hours from genocidal threats against Iran to talking about a joint venture with Tehran tolling the Strait of Hormuz. A fragile…
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Special ep with Anna Fifield on the US, Iran, and Winston in Washington
The NZ foreign minister was in DC to meet Marco Rubio just as Donald Trump raged about destroying Iran's civilisation. Mercifully, within hours the US…
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Is NZ getting the fuel crisis right? Here's your timely, targeted and temporary analysis
Covidesque in crisis-mode, but anti-Covid in substance, the government response to the economic shockwaves released from the war on Iran is playing out in New…
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We don't know how to be any clearer, guys
It was Christopher Luxon's worst week as prime minister, beginning with flubbed attempts to explain New Zealand's position on the war on Iran and ending with a…
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10th birthday special: Live with Wayne Brown and Andrew Little
The mayors of Wellington and Auckland join Toby, Annabelle and Ben for two very special live events in recent days at the Embassy and Q Theatres. Discussion…
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Ben Thomas reports from the shitstorm
A catastrophic failure at the Moa Point wastewater plant in Wellington has laid bare a short-term crisis and a crisis of short-termism. Fortified by nothing…
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Are Peters and Luxon on a collision course?
As Christopher Luxon announced an election date of November 7, a strip of the North Island was under siege from another bout of brutal weather. As the clean-up…
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Summer Reissue: Bonus ep - Thoughts on the Jacinda Ardern film and book
Gone By Lunchtime is taking a break over summer. We’ll be back soon with new episodes but, until then, here’s one of our favourites from 2025: Hot on the heels…
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Summer Reissue: Juggernaut 2
Gone By Lunchtime is taking a break over summer. We’ll be back soon with new episodes but, until then, here’s one of our favourites from 2025: After the…
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New Year special: 2026 in NZ politics
Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire take a quick break from partying atop the Sky Tower to discuss the highlights from the political year that…
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Summer Reissue: Emergency politics Toddcast - The National Party after Muller
Gone By Lunchtime is taking a break over summer. We’ll be back soon with new episodes but, until then, here’s one of our favourites from the vault: At 7.30am…
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Breaking: everything is good now
His summer break may only be 20 minutes long, but Christopher Luxon goes into it grinning, on the back of a poll that saw a swing to the right, boosted…
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The Luxon conundrum
There’s a lot of talk about challenges to Christopher Luxon’s leadership. Toby, Ben and Annabelle do as they must and talk about the talk and whether there’s…
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The Police and the bad apple thesis
A shocking report by the Independent Police Conduct Authority has revealed a litany of serious failings in the handling of complaints relating to the disgraced…
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Good news: NZ is back on track
In his first face-to-face encounter with Donald Trump, Christopher Luxon has exchanged hair jokes and golf banter. Does that confirm that back on track level…
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Meltdown in Te Pāti Māori
A 10pm email to members blew apart the reset mood in Te Pāti Māori on Monday night with a litany of allegations and appendices dating back years, as part of a…
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Peters delivers Palestine decision in New York
After a protracted process and plenty of speculation, Winston Peters has announced the cabinet decision on acknowledgement of Palestinian statehood in his…
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Te Pāti Māori wrenches defeat from the jaws of victory
Celebrations for a big and bodacious Oriini Kaipara byelection victory were shortlived for Te Pāti Māori thanks to Tākuta Ferris's decision to double down on a…
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Pulse check, pub quiz & predictions: live from WORD Christchurch
In a special live edition of GBL in Ōtautahi, Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas complete a stocktake of the governing and alternative…
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Bonus ep: Thoughts on the Jacinda Ardern film and book
Hot on the heels of the publication of A Different Kind of Power comes Prime Minister, an enthralling new film that applies a genuinely gobsmacking lens on…
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It’s all fine apart from butter, Trump, netball, etc
Christopher Luxon took a short and sharp mindset into the National Party conference on the weekend and with good reason: there is much getting back on track…
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‘The one thing they could blow up the government over’
We rattle through the regulatory standards bill, its advocates, its dissenters, and the tension it has created within the coalition. How serious is the fissure…
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We have issues, many issues
With an election about 15 months away, there are few better ways to get a sense of the political terrain than the Ipsos Issues Monitor, a survey that tracks…
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New Zealand punches above its tightrope
Around the world, the flames of aggression and instability are burning. As Christopher Luxon arrives in China his immediate challenge is to douse the alarm…
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Polling, ex-PMs, dickheadery and a goat sacrifice
We're officially in the second half of the term, a milestone marked by the historic handover of the hallowed deputy prime minister amulet from Winston Peters…
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Budget special: When The Facts Change x Gone By Lunchtime
In the year of growth, Nicola Willis has presented a growth budget. But does the Investment Boost initiative, which speeds up depreciation for businesses…
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House of C****
Unprecedented punishments imposed on Te Pāti Māori MPs, and the scramble to avoid banning them from the budget debate, is top of the agenda this week…
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Really, really urgent
An overhaul of the pay equity process has been whisked through parliament under urgency. The changes, which tighten the criteria for making a claim for workers…
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Australian election special with Ben McKay
This Saturday Aussies will (compulsorily) head to the polls. At the start of the year, Labor under Anthony Albanese was staring down the barrel of defeat and…
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Christopher, champion of the free trade world
The PM’s speech and free-trade phone tree with like-minded leaders in response to Trump’s tarrif binge impressed many commentators, but not all of them…
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Live in Auckland with special guest Rebecca Wright
At a sold out Q Theatre on Wednesday night, Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire grapple with the new Trump world order, preview the…
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Home and away with Christopher Luxon
After a drum beat of conjecture about his job security, the prime minister enjoyed something of an elixir in the investment summit and a trip to India that…
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A conversation with David Parker about the world and NZ’s place in it
The Labour spokesperson for foreign affairs joins Toby Manhire for a special podcast casting a view across a turbulent world. New Zealand, like pretty much…
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The Curious Case of Christopher Luxon's Hosking Equivocations
Ambiguity surrounding the precise nature of the "animated" behaviour by Andrew Bayly towards a staffer, which led to his resignation as commerce minister…
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David Seymour and his Prince Hal epoch
The leader of the Act Party has been in plenty of headlines in the last two weeks, ranging from a controversial (and historic) letter written on behalf of…