The Long Read from Stuff

A mysterious group called the Flying Phoenix Trust spared no expense building a large compound on farmland near Waihi. A decade on, the $50m complex is mainly used for school camps and the odd retreat. Who's behind it? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Antipodean albatross will be functionally extinct in 30 years. This is the story of how US supermarkets are unwittingly helping to kill New Zealand's most endangered bird. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 60 years of saving the world, 007 has visited more than 50 countries but never been to New Zealand. Why not? Despite our natural beauty and burgeoning film industry, is Aotearoa too bland for Bond? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The untold story of Major David Foote – the New Zealand army nurse who wrote a goodbye letter to his daughter, then risked his life to save others in Afghanistan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When two historians set out to learn more about the first coach of the Silver Ferns, they did't even know her first name. Their journey took them from the netball courts of Wellington to the Central Otago goldfields, revealing a story of immigrant labour, poverty and marginalisation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Three sisters, Mei, Charmaine and Francess Whaanga, were children when their whānau moved from the East Coast to the city. Now in their 60s, they, like so many children of the great Māori urban migration, are without homes of their own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For decades, a rundown house in Christchurch secretly harboured one of New Zealand’s greatest literary treasures. This is the story of the reclusive hoarder who hid it, the woman who wrote it, and the man who rediscovered it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One intrepid reporter dives headlong into the world of Covid-19 conspiracies and emerges to tell the tale. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Plunket's founder is widely acknowledged as a white supremacist who established the society to help preserve the "master race". More than 100 years on, can Plunket shake its racist past? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Olivia Shivas joins Michael Wright to talk about Stuff's latest podcast What's Wrong with You? – about life with a disability –and share the most inappropriate question she's ever been asked about using a wheelchair. Listen to the first episode of WWWY and, if you like what you hear, subscribe to the series: https://interactives.stuff.co.nz/2021/08/whats-wrong-with-you-podcast/. Learn more about y...

From refugee to Fulbright scholar. Abbas Nazari was seven years old when he fled the Taliban and was rescued from a sinking boat by the cargo ship Tampa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Forty years on, protesters recall the heart-stopping moments and enduring consequences of the 1981 Springbok tour of New Zealand. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The terrible truth about why 385 passengers and crew were held hostage by Saddam Hussein; and the New Zealand journalist who refused to let the story go. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More and more of us call our home New Zealand Aotearoa, but as its popularity rises, so does the noise around it. Why is New Zealand also called Aotearoa? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Seven years since Te Urewera was officially recognised as a legal person, her people – Ngāi Tūhoe – are facing up to the wounds of colonisation and a Crown partnership haunted by the past. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Willi Huber, the pioneer behind Canterbury's Mt Hutt ski field, hid a dark past on his immigration forms. Now, the woman who was closest to him is breaking her silence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nearly 180 years ago, at a central Auckland intersection, a Māori teenager was hanged before hundreds of settlers, changing the course of history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Moko kauae is resurging in New Zealand. One woman's journey to receiving the traditional Māori chin tattoo, and a reporter grappling with her own identity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Zealand’s braided rivers have been systematically strangled, and in some case, left behind zombie rivers. Now, academics and scientists are re-imagining what it means to live with rivers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How chemical weapons, economic theory and the internet combined to squeeze ten barbershops into one Auckland suburb. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Skulduggery, bullying and death threats in New Zealand's rabbit breeding community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The story of how a roguish, beloved New Zealand bird was nearly eradicated. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thousands of people have strived to represent New Zealand at the Olympic Games. Just 1371 have succeeded. This is the story of Joseph Millar's decade-long quest to be one of them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One public health expert still believes New Zealand’s widely-lauded response to Covid-19 has been a disaster. But how did Dr Simon Thornley become the 'extreme outlier' in his profession and a hero to anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Long Read Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices