Maia Ingoe

I am a writer and journalist based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa (Auckland, New Zealand). I'm currently a journalist for Radio New Zealand; previously a co-editor of Salient Magazine and freelancer writer. 

Featured Articles

Salient Magazine •

Microforested — Salient Magazine

I breathe in and inhale the smell of dampness and cold and rot. It’s a rich smell: full of growth, moistness, and winter after rainfall. The water seeps through the trees, through the fallen leaves coating the ground, the mulch forming underneath; slinks between the soil and the granules of stone and past all of the tiny critters chewing, munching, decomposing. It runs down into the deep reservoirs and buried rivers that run beneath suburbs. I step over the leaves and keep walking.

The lichens
Salient Magazine •

Imagining a Climate-Altered Future —

“[This] is a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable.” - UN Secretary General António Guterres on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, 9 August 2021.

I check the news as I wake up (not doing my anxiety any favours). A ^Guardian article tells me there's a new study analysing a stack of research carried out by ExxonMobil scientists. The article reveals they predicted climate change, with striking accuracy, in t
The Spinoff •

Saving Moko - The Spinoff

It might be selfish to focus on one species when entire ecosystems are under threat. But I was worried about the Māui dolphin when I did a speech about them at intermediate school, and I’m still worried now.

Extinction is all-consuming and eternal. When an animal, plant or fungi goes extinct, an entire system changes, like how a family is never the same after the loss of a child. To my generation, extinction seems to be a cascade, an uncontrollable phenomenon we have set the trigger for. Often

Whakarongo ki te Tai Ao | Headland

My best mornings are spent on the couch squeezed onto our thin, sloping veranda. Washing hangs at eye level, paint peels from the railing, dust and grime coat the windowsills. On the blue-sky days, sunshine twists and spirals around shadows of trees stretching in the wind. Lime green and darkened emerald leaves, spindly branches patterning the sky. The buildings behind are hidden from view. If I’m lucky, a tūī might come to hop between the branches, or maybe a kererū.

Brick steps lead to our ho

Editorials - Salient Magazine

Salient Magazine •

Kiwi Kids Are Rocking It (Rocking It) — Salient Magazine

It’s been a wild ride, but we’ve finally made it to Issue 24: our final issue as editors. In this issue, we’re reminiscing on our childhoods, teens, and our years at Salient. It’s time to soak in the sappiest soppiest of nostalgia.

We all seem to be going back in time and searching for the things that gave us childhood comfort. We’re building our dream homes, and making them up to the Healthy Homes Standards, in The Sims. Bella is blasting K-pop in the office as we write this and we can’t stop
Salient Magazine •

Get Informed and VOTE, Bitches — Salient Magazine

Elections are exhausting in any old year. But in 2023, when we’ve got skyrocketing rental prices, a rapidly closing window to lower emissions and prevent climate catastrophe, rising discrimination towards our trans whānau, and at the end of it all, a choice between two cis white men named Chris for the country’s next Prime Minister, it’s especially fucking draining.

Trust us—we know how tempting it is to disengage and shut out politics. Maia would much rather be giggling at TikToks of Travis Ke
Salient Magazine •

Media is: Energy Drink Discord Bros, Tinder Fish Guys, and NPC TikTok Girlies —

You might notice something a little different about us in our editorial pic this week, and that’s because Maia and Fran have left the chat. Enter Frank, Mark, and their shared gf Alexa. Frank is a Discord bro sponsored by Monster who posts slightly concerning conspiracy rants on YouTube, Mark is your classic Tinder fish bogan who you should block at first message before he asks you out on a picnic-turned-hunting date, and Alexa, named after Amazon’s home assistant, is a TikTok girlie who makes c
Salient Magazine •

Serious Chat: Job Cuts are a Student Issue —

Fun fact: most students don’t come to university just for the fancy piece of paper. We come here to learn, grow, engage in conversation, meet people, form new ideas, begin our careers, and do what we are passionate about.


To us, university isn’t about earning money. Considering the debt we put ourselves in to just to study, it’d be pretty delusional if it was. The same can’t be said for the Vice-Chancellor and Senior Leadership Team. For them, this university isn’t about elevating the new ge
Salient Magazine •

E noho ana au ki Te Whanganui-a-Tara —

Te Taiao is the environment all around us. It’s the paths that we walk through everyday, the plant matter we interact with, and the entire ecosystem that we are an irrevocably impactful part of.


Te Taiao isn’t confined to national parks and manicured city greenspaces: it’s in our backyards, it’s the gutters next to highways, in the mushrooms growing in our flat bathrooms, in our urban streets and lichen sprinkled fences, curving coastlines, and rural farmland. It’s the whale that visited the
Salient Magazine •

The Salient Stay Home Club — Salient Magazine

Burnout is real babes. We need mental health days!

If the pandemic taught the world anything, it’s that it’s very possible to work and study from home. Lockdowns and online lecturers, for a lot of us, made getting degrees much easier. Society was starting to realise it wouldn’t collapse if someone works from their bedroom, and not from the office, and finally, a 9-5 could be doable.

But unfortunately, the ableism and ignorance so core to people in power has sprinkled its way back in. Te Hereng
Salient Magazine •

A Love Letter to the Salient Reader — Salient Magazine

You might be picking this magazine up for the first time, or this might be the 61st issue you’ve flicked through. Whether you’re a new reader of Salient, or a fan since third-year: welcome. This is our love letter to you.

Each week, we pour our hearts into producing 40 pages of content just for you. We want you to be informed, enraged, engaged, and ultimately, feel seen. We love seeing cut-up Salient pages on bedroom walls in the back of IG selfies or TikToks. We smile when we see a group readi
Salient Magazine •

Commit to the Bit — Salient Magazine

For the ‘Comedy’ issue, we ventured into the field to do some first-hand research. What makes people laugh?

Armed with free chips coated in mayonnaise, we headed into the gallery at the Michael Fowler Centre, pretending we were the eye of God to watch the Best Foods Comedy Gala. We’ll be real, it was no Met Gala. Instead of red carpet couture, it was a showcase of comedians crossing the plainly lit stage in millennial fashion and skinny jeans. And we were easily the youngest people there.

Whil
Salient Magazine •

PASS US THE AUX — Salient Magazine

Music is a core part of the Salient office. Whether it’s in our headphones during work cramming mode, or blasted throughout the office in our manic hours, it’s a constant for us. It amps us up when we need an extra boost before print, when we’re sleep deprived and Red Bull fuelled. When Maia and Bella insist on blasting The 1975 or Harry Styles, you can catch Fran knee deep in her musical guilty pleasure of study time lofi jazz. As early 2000s babies, we also love a good VUWSA van roadie sing-al
Salient Magazine •

Deconstructing Social Construction — Salient Magazine

This century is the first time we’ve been able to admire everything at our fingertips. We can collect and consume a kaleidoscope of content displaying a variety of styles, decades, cultures, possible futures, and patterns between the past and present. Our brains have become Pinterest boards filled with content, combining ideas in a new visual context like never before.

It’s overwhelming and exciting. We can now see beyond our individuality, and relate to others. Subcultures adjacent to the main
Salient Magazine •

Climate in Crisis Mode — Salient Magazine

In the face of existential doom, it’s not unusual to ask how in the world another magazine writing about climate change is really going to help.


The Salient “Climate Crisis” issue doesn’t reduce emissions, nor build new public transport routes, nor burn down capitalism. If anything, our beloved print medium kills a big boy chunk of trees (at least we’re self aware right?).


But our words fill a need just as great—they get us talking about the crisis.

There are many days when the news bec
Salient Magazine •

Enter the Editorial Hivemind — Salient Magazine

Disclaimer: Some of the content in this issue deals with pretty heavy stuff. If you, or someone you know, needs help, we’ve put together a list of helplines to call on page 36. Kia kaha <3

“When we think of the term ‘mental health’, our minds tend to go to the extremities of poor mental health, as if mental health is inherently a bad, negative, scary thing.” - Chloé Hayden, Different, Not Less

Mental illness is not something new to us in the Salient office. We think it’s important to move past
Salient Magazine •

Sexploration — Salient Magazine

We’ve all been there. Giggling with our friends and pushing ourselves into a sex shop for the very first time. You enter through the iridescent bead curtain and are confronted with a whole new world: dildos of all sizes, vibrators of many colours, lube in each and every flavour, and lingerie in a range of lace and frills. There are fleshlights and buttplugs, handcuffs (fluffy and industrial), and mysterious rope and chains. You are shocked by the number of vessels, toys, and trinkets you don’t e
Salient Magazine •

You Better Werk, Bitch — Salient Magazine

It’s 10 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. You’ve just finished your morning shift at the part-time job that constantly rosters you on during university hours, and now have to boost it up from Lambton Quay to Kelburn Campus for the last two hours of your three hour (unrecorded) workshop. After that, it’s onto your freelance gig due the next morning, which takes priority over the 3000-word essay you haven’t started.

If you're reading Salient, this won’t be unfamiliar. Students gotta hustle, and hustle h
Salient Magazine •

Let’s Make This House Our Home — Salient Magazine

Making a home away from home gives us a sense of belonging and safety. When we moved into the Salient office, we had to make it ours. We brought in plants, revived a struggling peace lily, and made a lounge of couches and crochet blankets. It’s not just our office now, it’s our second home.

Over the past three years, we have been stuck inside a fuck tonne. If you weren’t a homebody before 2020, you now at least have an appreciation for the WFH lifestyle. Over this time, we either thrived or alm
Salient Magazine •

Shweedietopia — Salient Magazine

Back in 2020, any weed positive young person was excited for the possibility of a legal-high utopia. With the referendum right around the corner, it felt like we were on the precipice of a future where weed would be sold on Cuba Street dispensaries; where medicinal cannabis would be widely available for all who needed it; where growers would get legitimately paid for their skills; where weed could be safely regulated, out of the blackmarket; where people would be educated about it, without stigm
Salient Magazine •

Let's Get Physical — Salient Magazine

So we’ll be real with you. We can confirm we’re not the sportiest Salient editors. If anything, we might be the two of the least sporty. Does this mean that we’re couch potatoes? We do froth a Love Island night, but we’re definitely active, just in our own way.

Aotearoa is obsessed with sport and fitness. It’s a culture so strong, being unsporty in school could get you bullied; not just by other kids, probably by their mums too. But being active is not exclusive to the sports field or gym. Keep
Salient Magazine •

It's 2023, Time for Reinvention! — Salient Magazine

Maia: I came to university in search of a new identity. I’m not quite sure I ever managed some soul-shattering identity change where I became unrecognisable from my earlier self (apart from an over-inflated sense of change when I cut my hair short). But I definitely did change in small parts; in the ways I dressed and spoke; in the people I surrounded myself with; in how I expressed my passions. Pōneke has become foundational to this new identity, so much so that going home to Tairāwhiti disrupt

All my published work:

Salient Magazine •

How to Survive the Renting Rat Race — Salient Magazine

It’s that time of year again: hordes of freshers perform the annual ritual of scurrying to find a flat before the next academic year begins. The difficulty to even be offered a flat as a first-time renter has forced our news intern to accept a flat in the ditch of Devon Street in Aro Valley (pray for him).

To save you from the same fate, we’ve put together our top tips on finding a flat. Hit up the VUWSA Advocates, Brie Keatley and Erica Schouten (advocate@vuwsa.org.nz), for more free advice an
Salient Magazine •

Grant Robertson Votes, Eats Sausage, and Ignores Protesters on Campus — Salient Magazine

VUW has become a hotspot for politicians heading to cast their vote, with Labour’s Grant Robertson and Ibrahim Omer voting in the Hub last Wednesday, and the Greens’ Tamatha Paul and James Shaw, alongside Wellington mayor Tory Whanau, voting here last Monday. Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni showed up in support, but didn’t cast her vote.

As part of their political efforts, Grant Robertson and Wellington Central candidate Ibrahim Omer “awkwardly paraded around university, disturbing studyi
Salient Magazine •

OPINION: The VUWSA Election Gives Us No Choice —

Unless you actually have a life, you may have noticed it’s VUWSA election season—students’ yearly chance to have somewhat of a say in who makes up our student union. By the time this article is published, voting on yet another lacklustre VUWSA election with, for the most part, zero options, will have closed.

It wasn’t any surprise to anyone who the newly elected VUWSA President was when announced at the AGM on 28 September: Marcail Parkinson, a student activist well-versed in VUWSA and universi
Salient Magazine •

Candidate Kōrero: Prime Minister Chris Hipkins (Labour Party) —

We met the Prime Minister at his office in the Beehive—Chippy was 15 minutes late, largely due to a tray of sausage rolls being wheeled into his office (Fair enough).

“Hi, I’m Chris,” the PM introduced himself, chipper if not a bit clammy, fresh from National’s tax policy announcement (and Labour’s worst polling results since 2017, dipping into the 20s). We took a seat on one of the sofas in his Beehive office and wasted no time getting stuck in.

Chippy was VUWSA president in 2000 and 2001, wh
Salient Magazine •

Candidate Kōrero: Julie-Anne Genter —

Julie-Anne Genter regularly braves the cold for a swim in the South Coast’s marine reserve, Taputeranga. “It’s really magic,” she says. So it was an easy choice to film a campaign video there—until a whale visited Island Bay the day of their filming, disrupting their plans. Genter wasn’t disappointed. What a better sign, she thought, for a Green campaign than a whale visiting. She posted on Twitter: “This is basically an endorsement, right?”


A Green Party MP since 2011, this is the first time
Salient Magazine •

Cuts to Theatre: Undervaluing an Industry —

The teachers and students of the VUW Theatre programme are staring down the barrel of severe job cuts that have been described by staff and students as “blindsiding” and “tearing apart a community”.

The VUW Theatre programme is one of the only ones in the country where students are trained in a practical, multi-disciplinary way that enables students to combine Theatre with other programmes in the BA. The original job cuts proposed by the university would split the Theatre school in half—cutting
Salient Magazine •

Microforested — Salient Magazine

I breathe in and inhale the smell of dampness and cold and rot. It’s a rich smell: full of growth, moistness, and winter after rainfall. The water seeps through the trees, through the fallen leaves coating the ground, the mulch forming underneath; slinks between the soil and the granules of stone and past all of the tiny critters chewing, munching, decomposing. It runs down into the deep reservoirs and buried rivers that run beneath suburbs. I step over the leaves and keep walking.

The lichens
Salient Magazine •

OPINION: Seeking Justice for my Emotional Support Halloumi Wrap —

The LAB’s halloumi wrap was, on some days, the only reason I came to uni. I dragged myself to 9 a.m. lectures, knowing that since my disorganised ass hadn’t made lunch, my beloved halloumi wrap awaited me. At $10, it was a spicy price, but I was willing to pay for the mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical support the halloumi wrap gave me. One bite into that delicious, salted, cheesy goodness mixed in with seasonal vegetables, beans, and that beautiful aioli sauce and I was insatiable.


Salient Magazine •

Stafford House Evades the Residential Tenancy Act: Payout of $4800 Ordered —

A past resident of Stafford House has been awarded $4800 in compensation and damages by the Tenancy Tribunal, in a ruling combining eight different breaches of the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 (RTA).


The resident lived at Stafford House from February to November 2022, during his first year at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, in accommodation he described as “disgusting”.


Stafford House is operated by UniLodge, who operated under agreement with VUW as a Hall of Residen
Salient Magazine •

Over Budget and Overtime: Why is Now the Time for the Living Pā? —

The building extension of Te Herenga Waka Marae, the Living Pā, is unique, ambitious, and future focused, but burdensome challenges have continued to push the project backwards.

An OIA received by Salient confirmed that a revised budget of $52 million for the project was approved in late 2022, an increase of $17m from the original budget of $35m approved in 2019.

$17.5m has been spent on the project to date. This marks a significant spend for the university in a fraught financial climate, with
Salient Magazine •

The Loud & Queer Comedy Showcase Shimmers with Pride — Salient Magazine

The Loud & Queer showcase was stuffed full with glorious LGBTQIA+ talent from this year’s NZ International Comedy Festival, and enough Best Foods mayonnaise to feed a small army. Equipped with two free comms tickets, I headed to the most vulnerable seat you can take at a live comedy show: second row, dead centre.

An audience member getting the shit ripped out of them is, arguably, the most entertaining part of live comedy (if you’re in the back row). So when Sainsbury turned the house lights up
Salient Magazine •

Kura Turuwhenua: The Hōhā Guy in Aotearoa Comedy —

Kura Turuwhenua greets everyone who comes to her comedy show with a hug at the door, demonstrating the kind of welcoming, unassuming yet witty, comedy she does.

Kura is an up-and-coming comedian from Tāmaki Makaurau, hailing from Tūhoe, Kāi Tahu, and Ngāti Porou. Hōhā Guy is her solo comedy debut, showing as part of the 2023 NZ International Comedy Festival. I caught up with Kura while she was in Pōneke performing the show to chat about how she stumbled into the comedy scene and what it means t
Salient Magazine •

Salient’s Budget Breakdown (the bits that are actually relevant to you) — Salient Magazine

Each year, the government drops a hefty document outlining how they plan to spend taxpayer money over the next 12 months. The budget is typically peppered with exciting initiatives to court voters’ attention, but this year, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins warned us that it would be a “no frills budget”. He really meant it. Budget ‘23 had less frills than a commerce student’s crusty jockeys.

One of the key announcements from the budget is the government's plan to permanently extend half price publi
Salient Magazine •

This IS the Pōneke music scene! — Salient Magazine

Words by Maia Ingoe (she/her), photos by Ruby Millichamp (she/her) and Bella Maresca (they/them)

For the 2023 Salient music issue, we wanted to highlight local musicians changing the scene in Pōneke. Wellington has a thriving music landscape, from staples like Meow, Moon, San Fran and Valhalla, to annual central city festivals like CubaDupa and Homegrown, to the student culture that finds its life with live music. But we know that the music scene in Pōneke and Aotearoa has been dominated by mal
Salient Magazine •

OPINION: VUW’s Natural Gas Boilers Cannot Be Replaced Fast Enough —

Climate Change Minister James Shaw recently announced that public hospitals and tertiary education institutions would be included, along with public schools, in the goal to replace all coal boilers by 2025.

In total, the government invested $78 million to 38 decarbonisation projects across the state sector. “This means […] students will be going to work at a place with cleaner air,” Shaw said earlier this month.

So, what does Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington get out of this in
Salient Magazine •

Review: ‘What if We Just Made Art, Not the Climate Crisis?’ —

Generation Zero’s opening night for their exhibition, ‘What if we made art, not the climate crisis?’, felt close and touching. Run by the youth climate activism group, their aim was to curate art through community hui leading up to a competition, receiving over 80 submissions. The winners were featured in the exhibition hosted at Te Auaha from 15-26 April. The focus of the art was imagining what the world in 2050 could look like through art.

The opening event was hosted by Janine Kaminski and A
Salient Magazine •

The Ballad of Matty Healy and His Brain: The 1975 At Their Very Best —

On 19 April, crowds gathered in their hundreds at TSB Arena to see indie-pop band The 1975 for the Wellington leg of their At Their Very Best tour. Every concert-goer was ready to live out their 2013-Tumblr-girl fantasy.

The show opened with ‘The Birthday Party’, but in the wrong key, prompting a re-start with frontman Matty ‘The Ratty’ Healy saying, “There are no rules to this show.” There was not a dull moment in the 25-song long setlist, delighting fans and bringing a high-energy intensity t
Salient Magazine •

Disrupted Highways and Disgruntled Drivers: Restore Passenger Rail —

Recent disruptive climate protests have riled Wellington motorists, as activists from Restore Passenger Rail (RPR) have blocked roads and glued themselves to highways.

Five protestors are in police custody after a blockade in which protestors glued their hands to State Highway 1 at Vivian Street last Monday, lasting 30 minutes before police intervention. This followed another protest the week before, blocking Adelaide Road by the Basin Reserve on 20 April, and another on 17 April, blocking the
Salient Magazine •

Imagining a Climate-Altered Future —

“[This] is a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable.” - UN Secretary General António Guterres on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, 9 August 2021.

I check the news as I wake up (not doing my anxiety any favours). A ^Guardian article tells me there's a new study analysing a stack of research carried out by ExxonMobil scientists. The article reveals they predicted climate change, with striking accuracy, in t
Salient Magazine •

The down low on: MOVING IN WITH STRANGERS —

One room to fill – AVAILABLE NOW!

These words are all too familiar for anyone who has spent copious hours scrolling Wellington’s flatting Facebook groups, searching for a new home. Whether it’s on Vic Deals, Flats &Flatmates-Wellington, or Flats and Rooms for Rent Wellington NZ, the outlook is the same: single bedrooms in existing flats, searching for someone to move in ASAP.

With a housing market under pressure, flat hunting is a gruelling process made worse when entire flats are few and far
Salient Magazine •

VC Nic Smith on Community, Capital, and Letting the Dust Settle — Salient Magazine

Freshers aren’t the only newbies on the scene at VUW. A hot new bombshell has entered the villa: Vice Chancellor Nic Smith. He has busted into his new job as of January, telling Salient, “I'm in the listening phase.” In fact, he appeared to be a big fan of “letting the dust settle” (he used the phrase three times, twice in the same sentence), “understanding” (ten times), “capital” (six times), and “community” (ten times). As for action, this wasn’t mentioned much.

In his first interview with Sa
Salient Magazine •

Fringe Festival: A Stage for Students —

Fringe is known as the birthplace of brilliance for a reason. Over February and March, emerging artists and established performers take to Pōneke stages. Salient talked to three shows making their fringe debut.

King Shit explores online masculinity through an anthology of mediums. It is the first professional production by Wills Toon-Lister and Oliver Knott, who both completed degrees in theatre at VUW last year.

The show was born from recollections of the oppressive influence of anti-feminist
The Spinoff •

Saving Moko - The Spinoff

It might be selfish to focus on one species when entire ecosystems are under threat. But I was worried about the Māui dolphin when I did a speech about them at intermediate school, and I’m still worried now.

Extinction is all-consuming and eternal. When an animal, plant or fungi goes extinct, an entire system changes, like how a family is never the same after the loss of a child. To my generation, extinction seems to be a cascade, an uncontrollable phenomenon we have set the trigger for. Often
Salient Magazine •

From 1989 to 2022: Student Activism Endures —

Students are a fiery bunch. We enter university, an institution full of new people and new ideas, and we have a hunger to change what’s wrong with the world. Students have a rich history of being at the forefront of activism and movements of the day, from the 1970s and 80s to now. But 2022 looks a lot different to the 80s: university takes place via Zoom, students work one or more jobs to pay exorbitantly rising rents and struggle to afford the basics, and we pay thousands of dollars per class.
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