The Spinoff founder Duncan Greive’s appeal for reader support blamed halted taxpayer grants, which had “stopped dead,” for the site’s financial woes.
In an interview with Sean Plunket, Duncan Greive estimated The Spinoff’s taxpayer funding at “one or two million dollars.” However, journalist Graham Adams disputes this.
Adams cites NZ On Air records that show The Spinoff and its affiliates, Hex Work and Hexwork Productions, have received over $10m since 2016, alongside additional funding from other sources.
Adams writes that the Taxpayers’ Union (TU) has long argued The Spinoff misrepresents its reliance on public funds. TU cited $40,000 paid by Inland Revenue for a pro-tax series promoting the message “Tax is love” as an example of how taxpayer money supports Greive’s business.
Social media backlash has accused the outlet of advancing the previous government’s policies, including stringent COVID measures, while regularly accusing New Zealanders of transphobia and racism. Adams argues that The Spinoff’s content has often alienated those compelled to fund it, pointing to projects like Bad News, where one episode described New Zealand as “racist as f***.”
Greive denied accusations of bias but admitted, “The government procures all kinds of things… and one of the things it procures is content it would like to see in the world.” Adams concludes: “That sounds awfully like an inadvertent admission that The Spinoff was happy to accept millions of public money to further the Labour government’s policy aims.”
Editor’s note: During the COVID pandemic, The Spinoff collaborated with the World Health Organization (WHO) after its COVID public health illustrations, created by cartoonist Toby Morris and microbiologist Dr Siouxsie Wiles, gained international attention.