Sunday Day Pass

NUKU: Story Sovereignty

10.00 – 11.00am

In 2021 the much-celebrated book, NUKU: Stories of 100 Indigenous Women was released. NUKU is story sovereignty. It platforms Indigenous wāhine and gives them ownership over their narrative in an unfiltered, uninterrupted way. Through telling their stories, the women in NUKU seek to influence the world around them.

In this powerful panel session, NUKU founder, creator and publisher Qiane Matata-Sipu (Te Waiohua, Waikato, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Pikiao and Cook Islands) discusses story sovereignty with Papamoa-based marine ecologist, Professor Kura Paul-Burke (Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Whakahemo), filmmaker and producer Chelsea Winstanley (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi te Rangi), and racial equity educator, Kat Poi (Tainui, Te Arawa, Tonga) from Courageous Conversations South Pacific. These women will generously share their stories, the good and ugly, and wrestle with how story sovereignty could be improved today in Aotearoa.

Gangland

11.30 - 12.30pm

In Gangland, Tauranga’s own award-winning investigative reporter Jared Savage shines a light into New Zealand's rising underworld of organised crime. His stories go behind the headlines and reveal an invisible world that’s frighteningly close to home - in which millions of dollars are made, life is cheap, and allegiances can change with the pull of a trigger. A largely invisible world yet one which is also very close to home.

As well as rip-snorting crime yarns, Gangland also reveals the wider social issues facing Aotearoa. According to police figures, since 2016 about 1000 New Zealanders joined gangs every year, and New Zealand is now one of the most lucrative illicit drug markets in the world. Over the past 20 years, dealers have graduated from motorcycle gangs to Asian crime syndicates and now the Mexican cartels - the most dangerous drug lords in the world.

Jared Savage, who has twice been named New Zealand Reporter of the Year, appears in conversation with The Spinoff’s Editor-at-Large, Toby Manhire.

After the Tampa: From Afghanistan to New Zealand

1.30 – 2.30pm

In 2001 Abbas Nazari's parents fled Taliban persecution in Afghanistan to find a safe place for their children. Their six-month journey through Pakistan and Indonesia searching for asylum culminated with the family being crammed onto a small fishing boat with more than 400 other asylum seekers. When that boat started to sink in the Indian Ocean, they were mercifully rescued by a Norwegian cargo boat, the Tampa. This sparked an international incident among Australia, Norway and Indonesia over responsibility for those rescued, leaving them stranded and then ultimately sent to Nauru Island. Eventually New Zealand offered to take 150 of them, including Nazari and his family.

Now a bestselling author, speaker and Fulbright Scholar, Nazari recounts his extraordinary story - from living under the Taliban’s brutal rule, to spending a terrifying month at sea, his family’s desperate search for safety, and building a new life at the bottom of the world.

An inspiring storyteller of our times, Nazari celebrates the importance of never letting go of what drives the human spirit: hope. He will be in conversation with writer and journalist, Mohamed Hassan.

@theabbasnazari

How to be a Bad Muslim

3.00 – 4.00pm

How to be a Bad Muslim is the elegant, debut non-fiction offering from award-winning New Zealand writer, poet and journalist Mohamed Hassan. It maps the personal and public experience of being Muslim through a lens of identity, Islamophobia, surveillance, migration and language.

Also a poet, Hassan’s work has been shared widely online, and is taught in hundreds of schools across the world. He has toured New Zealand, Australia, the US and UK, appeared at TEDx, and the Cheltenham Literature Festival, and he represented NZ at the Individual World Poetry Slam in 2016. Hassan was nominated for an Online Media Award in 2018 for his work covering the Israel/Palestine conflict, and his RNZ podcast Public Enemy was awarded the Gold Trophy at the 2017 New York Festivals Radio Awards.

Hassan speaks authentically and piercingly on mental health, grief and loss, while weaving memories of an Egyptian immigrant fighting. In this special conversation with Rosabel Tan, he speaks about this illuminating and powerful collection of essays.

Gone by Lunchtime: Tauranga Live

4.30 – 5.30pm

In an Escape first, The Spinoff’s popular political podcast, Gone By Lunchtime, will record an episode live in Tauranga Moana!

Producer and presenter Annabelle Lee Mather, media commentator and PR raven Ben Thomas, and The Spinoff’s Editor-at-Large Toby Manhire spend their days closely studying the ins, outs, ups and downs of Aotearoa’s political, cultural and media landscapes, and the parties and people who inhabit them. In this delightfully acerbic session, the jocular triumvirate will assess the state of play a year out from election, peer into the turbulent times of the Tauranga City Council and discuss the current and future political landscape of our city.

They will be joined by two special guests.