The Detail: The stories that defined a year

Photo: Cole Eastham-Farrelly

As the year draws to a close, The Detail looks back at 12 months of deep dives, sharp analysis, and the kinds of conversations that helped New Zealanders make sense of a turbulent, fast-moving world

If 2025 had a national soundtrack, it would be a layered mix of money worries, power struggles, climate shocks, consumer battles, and sporting turbulence.

And The Detail has spent the year listening to each beat, producing a full deep-dive look at each genre, offering not just a record of what has happened but a guide to understanding how - and why - it matters.

The team - Alexia Russell, Amanda Gillies, Davina Zimmer, Gwen McClure, and Sharon Brettkelly - has worked to slow down the news cycle just enough to understand it.

We have gone to the experts - economists, environmentalists, journalists, CEOs, lawyers, doctors, among others - to untangle the complexities of financial policy, to reveal the human stories behind climate change, to hold those in power to account, and to examine sporting wins and losses - and, boy, those losses on the world stage have hurt.

We have tried to guide listeners through the wide-ranging ripple effects of the cost-of-living crunch that has refused to ease, and to tap into the growing frustrations of New Zealanders trying to navigate both online scams and advances.

We have explored why environmental d