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Added on 26 Feb 2024. Last read just now.

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This feed currently contains the following newsitems (total count 697):

    • Landslides in Wellington — They’re Going Downhill
      • Martha Schenk On the morning of 22 January 2026, a disastrous landslide claimed the lives of six people in a Mount Manganui holiday park. Hours later in nearby Pāpāmoa, two more people died when another slope failed and crushed their home. Eight deaths in a single morning: a statistic at once shocking and strangely familiar in Aotearoa. Research from GNS Science reveals that landslides are responsible for more deaths than earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, flooding, and tsunamis. The deaths...

    • Opinion: The Vending Machine Won’t See You Now
      • Phoebe Robertson There is something uniquely humiliating about being bested by a machine whose primary intellectual task is to rotate a coil. And yet, across campus, students are losing. Last week, Salient ran an Instagram poll asking students whether they had ever paid a campus vending machine and received nothing in return. Of the 201 respondents, 159—nearly 80 per cent—said yes. Read that again: nearly four out of five respondents say they have inserted money, tapped a card, or hovered a...

    • Why Are Mitre 10 Bags Being Handed Out to First-Years?
      • Te Urukeiha Tuhua Every year, first-year students are welcomed to campus with a small rite of passage: the VUWSA O-Week tote bag. Designed and printed specially for the occasion, the cotton “O-Bag” has become something of a collectible—practical, recognisable, and often spotted slung over shoulders long after Orientation Week ends. This year, however, the familiar tote was nowhere to be seen. Instead, first-years attending Tau Mai and Clubs Day events were handed a black-and-orange branded...

    • Students Return, But Campus Culture Lags Behind
      • Ryan Cleland It’s that time of year again here at Te Herenga Waka, where big promises are made about rebuilding student connection. Lecture theatres are filling up, tutorials are busy again, and the language of a “busy campus” is everywhere. But the 2025 Have Your Say Survey suggests that while students are physically back, the broader ecosystem of student life is recovering more gradually. Released annually and based on student feedback, the survey gives students the chance to share their...

    • The Privatisation of Talent
      • Jackson Firmstone A quadruple axel is the premier skill in figure skating, long seen as the El Dorado of the sport, and has only recently been within reach of humanity. The American figure skater Ilia Malinin (known as The Quad God) is the first person in history to complete all 4.5 rotations in an international competition. His recent stumble at the Olympic Games in Milan was a shock not only for himself but for the entire figure skating community, as he was considered the favorite for gold....

    • CRITIC-AT-LARGE ISSUE 2
      • Anti , Revisited Ten years later, Rihanna’s finest hour begins to sound more and more like her final It’s been ten years without new Rihanna music. To people my age, that might not feel like such a statement. We spent our teenage years seeing the star as everything but a studio musician: as a makeup tycoon, a lingerie designer, an actress, a Super Bowl Halftime Show, a mother, a billionaire, a Jonathan Anderson fan. So it’s hard for me to imagine or to reconstruct that moment in early 2016...

    • Satire: Chris Hipkins Unveils “I’m Not a Bad Guy” Campaign Ahead of 2026 Election Season
      • Labour pivots from inspiration to reassurance In a press conference lit exclusively by harsh, overhead fluorescents—the sort of lighting normally reserved for supermarket meat departments, police interviews, and situations where someone insists they don’t recall a conversation—Labour leader Chris Hipkins today unveiled what advisers are calling a reframing strategy for the party’s fortunes: the “ I’m Not a Bad Guy ” campaign. Reporters confirmed the lighting choice was deliberate. According...

    • Hunk Unc: How do you get over someone that ghosted you?
      • If you’re on a dating app—or honestly just trying to meet anyone—it’s pretty likely you’ll end up getting ghosted at some point. The 21st century gave us great things: streaming, online shopping, and food delivery at 1am…but it also gave us some proper rubbish ones. Ghosting being right up there. Your Hunk Unc has done his time in the trenches of the dating apps, and here’s the reality: it’s hard. So hard, in fact, this Hunk eventually jumped off them, worked on himself over summer, and...

    • An Eye for AroVision
      • Holly Rowsell Content Warning: Anti-trans Rhetoric, State Violence (ICE), Epstein. The state of media ownership is pretty fucking dim right now. Most of the major streamers are owned by mega-rich, MAGA sympathizing white guys who are carefully orchestrating the mass monopolisation of media. These are modern-day super-villians, and each year they’re getting bolder. For anyone unfamiliar, here's a recap of their greatest hits: Warner Bros. Studio, who we can thank for the biggest theatrical...

    • Issue Two Puzzle Answers
      • Connections Answers: First Connection Golf Clubs: Driver, Putter, Wedge, Iron Second Connection Car Parts: Motor, Shift, Trunk, Glove Third Connection Things that can "form" around something: Band, Circle, Ring, Club Fourth Connection Verbs meaning "think over/consider": Mull, Deal, Palm, Spoke

    • Munch
      • Guy van Egmond Little Penang What: Nyonya (Chinese-Malay-Javanese fusion) Price: $8.00-$17.00 When: Open for lunch and dinner, Monday–Saturday My one true love, my ride or die. The place to go for a hug on a plate. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ God bless Little Penang and its delicious, liberally–portioned plates of Peranakan perfection. This shining beacon of a restaurant will be 15 years old this year, but might as well have existed forever. There’s something that I can never quite pinpoint that makes the place...

    • Ngāi Tauira—Māori Students Association
      • Tēnā koutou katoa, Nau mai haere mai ki te Whare Wānanga o Te Herenga Waka! Ko Ngāi Tauira mātou! We are the Māori Students Association here at Te Herenga Waka. Our purpose is to enhance all that tauira Māori experience during their study. We provide support with hauora, promote academic success, encourage whakawhānaunga, and engage with cultural kaupapa. We provide a voice and advocate for tauira Māori at Victoria University of Wellington and also promote Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the...

    • The Guitarist
      • Georgia Wearing Content Warning: Sexual Language, Sexual Themes, Drug Use The Guitarist He looked like Alex Turner. The headlining Guitarist jerked his head at me, pointedly, towards the backstage door. I followed him, giddy, giggling into the lip of my glass. I hadn’t seen a man up this close before. His eyes were dark, almost black, and the pencil liner in his waterline had dried and flecked, small shards now on his cheekbone. He looked worn in, scruffy, an alley dog. The music of the...

    • What your coffee order says about you
      • Chai: Chai drinkers will scold you for saying Chai Tea, and explain to you that you’re actually just saying the same thing twice. These drinkers will think that they’re better than you just because they don’t have to rely on their morning caffeine hit to wake up. Hot Chocolate: Lets be honest, you don’t go to the cafe because you like to, do you? You order this to avoid the social anxiety of not ordering anything and sitting at the table empty handed. It’s okay, hot chocolate drinkers, just...

    • The Student Executive’s Year Ahead
      • Te Urukeiha Tuhua Last year’s student elections for Victoria University of Wellington’s Student Association (VUWSA) saw a huge leap in candidates, with significantly more people running than in recent years. Importantly, it was the first contested race for presidency since 2018, when current Wellington Central Member of Parliament Tamatha Paul was elected. Now that the buzz has settled down and executive members have moved into their new roles, Salient reached out to hear about what they...

    • A Modest Selection
      • Ali Cook When I told my family I was moving from America to Aotearoa for university, they reacted as if I’d announced plans to join a cult—or worse, a megachurch. My uncle swore I’d lose all my rights, my guns first, though I had to remind him that I do not, in fact, own any. He warned me that I’d wake up each morning to fetch water from a river with my bare hands, presumably before churning butter and writing letters by candlelight. He asked if I even spoke the language. Fair question....

    • HOW TO FRINGE!
      • An Insider’s Guide to the Wellington Fringe Festival Rebecca Stirling It's that time of year again. Boosted campaigns stalk your social feeds, posters multiply across campus, and theatre students begin materialising in your first lectures, eager—desperate, even—to tell you about their shows. Ah yes: the New Zealand Fringe Festival (just Fringe is fine) is nearly upon us. For one month a year, artists truly run rampant across Wellington, transforming the city into a low-level state of...

    • Critic-at-Large
      • Jackson McCarthy New True Romance Charli xcx’s Wuthering Heights looks to the past to find a future “Can I speak to you privately for a moment? / I just want to explain”. So begins Charli xcx’s ninth studio album, in a huskily-voiced spoken-word piece by John Cale (The Velvet Underground). But that opening track, ‘House’, with its creep and crescendo, its screams and distortions, is about as dark as Wuthering Heights gets. Though it’s been conceived of as a companion piece to the new...

    • voyeur’s martyrdom
      • Elio Mikoi the woman in black begged me to take her husband / she was a gentle figure of horror / and so i did. / i exist as her husband’s darkest secret / i’m not even back in black yet. / rough bites and cuts / swollen lips and bruised wrists / bodies swelling with pride. / his body is unforgiving, / and i am no priest to forgive such vindication. inhabit me, instill jealousy and love within me / his skin leaves me delirious / his hands leave me hungry, breathless. / and i chant in the...

    • University’s New International Scholarships Operate as Automatic Tuition Reductions
      • Phoebe Robertson Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington introduced two new international scholarships in 2025, offering $15,000 for undergraduate students and $10,000 for postgraduate students. The University confirmed the scholarships were launched in September 2025 for students enrolling from Trimester 3, 2025, positioning them as an upfront financial incentive at the point of acceptance rather than a later academic award. Nine students received the undergraduate award and 47...

    • Munch
      • Guy van Egmond Nau mai and welkom to Munch , your weekly guide to a bite to eat that won’t devour your budget. I’ll be your taste-tester of Wellington’s finest frugality; your penny-pinching truffle-pig to hunt down dining deals. My appetite is both discerning and decent, so if I’m full, trust that you will be too. But besides taste and portions, I also want to share the places in town that look after you—that feel homely (or surprisingly swanky)—and those that make their meals accessible....

    • Student Health Plan to Offer Free ADHD Assessments From Trimester Two
      • Dan Moskovitz Student Health is planning to introduce free ADHD (Attention Hyperactivity Deficit Disorder) diagnoses and prescriptions for students from trimester two—in a move it says could remove a major financial barrier to care. ADHD symptoms include inattentiveness, hyperactivity, and impulsivity, which can make sustained academic work difficult and leave university students particularly affected. Until recently, only psychologists and psychiatrists could diagnose ADHD and prescribe...

    • Hunk Unc
      • Hunk Unc: How do I know my friendships are good and healthy? Most people don’t realise a friendship’s off because something bad happens. They realise because something small keeps happening. You catch the bus home and feel oddly flat. You lie in bed replaying a conversation. You feel more tired after hanging out than you did before—that’s usually the first sign. Good friendships don’t leave you feeling like you’ve just done a full-body session you didn’t consent to. I had a mate I used to...

    • New Drug Tests Ask One Question: Would You Make a Good Cop?
      • When Public Safety Requires Your Open Mouth On December 15 2025, in what police are calling a “positive” development for road safety, the New Zealand Government quietly launched roadside drug testing in Wellington. Officials insist the initiative is simply meant to deter impaired driving—but independent sources now reveal a far more ambitious national project : the Government wants your DNA. The Government claims that the newly introduced roadside drug testing regime rolling out across...

    • Issue One Puzzle Answers
      • Connections Answers: First Connection Te Ao Māori Food Related Terms: Kai, Puku, Waha, Matira Second Connection Plant Structure: Branch, Root, Stem, Bank Third Connection Types of Strikes: Punch, Kick, Jab, Sock Fourth Connection Culinary Herbs: Mint, Basil, Sage, Thyme

    • The Bloke Who Animated the Apocalypse
      • When Charlie Faulks talks about animation, it’s with a kind of unstudied inevitability. “It was just always there,” he says. “I didn’t have to force myself to like it. It was just this passion that formed very quickly.”

    • Tue, 8:41p.m.
      • For Ali It was something about it, Just sitting there — cat curled into a comma against my thighs, fridge humming softly in the...

    • Meet the Pres: Aidan Donoghue
      • By Darcy Lawrey (he/him) The day I interviewed Aidan Donoghue, the 2026 VUWSA president, he was already getting stuck into the job...

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