Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website.

Emmaline Matagi: How to dress your Pākehā child up as Maui or Moana without appropriating Pasifika culture

Disney’s Moana has been a smash hit in New Zealand. Children everywhere want to dress up as characters from the movie. So how do you let your child dress up as Maui without appropriating Pasifika culture? It’s easy – Emmaline Matagi, an indigenous Fijian born in Fiji, tells you how.

Madeleine Chapman: Mike Hosking and the five stages of Ardern government grief

New Zealand’s top broadcaster has been on a journey since Winston Peters went left. Madeleine Chapman charts the Hosk’s passage through Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief.

Chris McDowall: The tick-splitters: how New Zealanders used their two votes, a visualisation

“Last Friday the Electoral Commission released detailed statistics on how New Zealanders voted in the 2017 general election. The website features special vote breakdowns, electoral vote statistics by party, an extended explanation of the Sainte-Laguë allocation formula and more. Be still, my beating heart!

The split vote tables caught my eye. These statistics detail how people split their votes between political parties. The more I looked, the more intrigued I became.”

Alex Casey: Married at First Sight NZ Power Rankings – Our first conscious uncoupling

“This week, the cocktail party continued well past that tipping point in an evening where any reasonable person would have already left to get a McChicken and sob to their Uber driver about how they are the only person on Earth who really understands them. Instead we got another dramatic toilet cry, we got swearing, we got more of the gossip ring from hell.”

Matt Lowrie: What the new government means for transport in Auckland

There are few areas of government policy in which the gap between National and Labour was as stark as in transport. We republish Greater Auckland’s Matt Lowrie on the likely priorities of the incoming government.

Tara Ward: Top ten moments from a very long and sexy Outlander reunion

“Say your goodbyes, Sassenachs, because this week’s Outlander will strike you down dead. The emotion will slay you, the passion will cut you into a thousand tiny pieces, and you’ll end up a wizened, wrinkled old prune after shedding endless floods of tears. We died, we is ded, and it is all Alexander Malcolm’s fault.”

Zach Castles: The party isn’t over: Why National’s message is needed now more than ever

“Labour has demonstrated that with the right leader and right machinations it no longer needs to win elections to take power. And what exactly those forces behind our new prime minister plan to do with that power should not be underestimated.

The incoming government makes no secret of its regard for capitalism as a “blatant” failure. This is despite nearly one billion people over the last 20 years having been lifted out of poverty because of it. Moreover, the very “neoliberalism” the incoming prime minister criticises, and yet refuses to define, has helped many Kiwis out of a life of welfare dependence and into the dignity of a job.”

Toby Manhire: A brief journey through the bad Australian takes on the NZ election

Another gold medal for the green-and-gold in the contest for the worst media opinions on New Zealand’s electoral outcome. Toby Manhire reads them so you don’t have to.

Rosie Bosworth: Synthetic meats are on their way, and our farmers are going to be left behind

“The biggest threat to the industry? That has to be synthetic biology. In a keynote at the recent NZBio Conference, chief science advisor Sir Peter Gluckman said that the rise of synthetic foods produced without animals – especially staple proteins like meat, milk and dairy – is an existential threat to the agricultural sector, and poses a very real risk to the future of New Zealand’s economy.

I wholeheartedly agree.”

Toby Manhire: Lose yourself in the judgment. Eminem v National: the 12 best bits of the ruling

The long-awaited decision on the National Party’s use of an ‘Eminem-esque’ track in its 2014 election advertising has finally arrived. These are our favourite parts from the judgment.