Listen back to features and interviews from 95bFM's daily news and current affairs show. Castor Chacko, Alex Fox, Emmanuel Orange, and Caeden Tipler focus on the issues of Tāmaki Makaurau and elsewhere in independent-thinking bFM style. Monday-Thursday 12-1pm on 95bFM.
95bFM journalist, Oto, spoke to Dr Paula O’Kane, a senior lecturer from the University of Otago, regarding Public Service Minister and Minister of Finance Nicola Willis announcing clampdowns on work from home arrangements for public sector employees.
This comes a day after Nicola Willis announced she had instructed Public Service department heads to restrict the number of Work from Home days given to employees, to reduce them from a default entitlement to a special arrangement to be formally agreed upon by employers and requiring agencies to regularly report on the number of Work from Home days given to employees.
For Dear Science our expert Doctor Cushla McGoverin chatted to us about pandas eating better in the past than they do now, using light to spot COVID, and separating liquids using other liquids.
In our weekly catchup with the National Party, Wire host Castor spoke to MP Katie Nimon about hospitality spending and the potential for a four-year parliamentary term.
They also spoke to general manager of the Restaurant Association, Nicola Waldren, about hospitality spending in Aotearoa and what more the government could do.
And on the Green Desk, Jack Marshall spoke to lecturer of sustainable architecture at AUT, Priscilla Besen, about solutions to Aotearoa’s energy crisis.
The struggles faced by the hospitality sector have been highlighted in a recent trading report from the Restaurant Association covering the second quarter of 2024. The report outlines various challenges businesses face, including low customer numbers and customer spending, reduced staff availability, and cost of goods.
Wire host Castor spoke to the general manager of the New Zealand Restaurant Association, Nicola Waldren, about these issues and what more could be done to address them.
Last week, the government revealed statistics showing a drop in crime in Auckland’s CBD, the reduction accredited to increased police presence under this government.
Crime isn’t the only issue facing the CBD, with recent data showing that hospitality spending in Auckland’s CBD is down compared to previous years. Challenges faced by hospitality businesses have been particularly evident since COVID lockdowns, with some heritage businesses permanently closing in recent months.
The government has also been tabling discussions of increasing the parliamentary term from three to four years. While several previous governments have discussed such a change, some issues have prevented it from going ahead.
In our weekly catchup with the National Party’s Katie Nimon, Wire host Castor asked her about these issues facing the CBD, and about the potential for a four-year parliamentary term, starting off with crime in the CBD.
Last week, thousands of explosions erupted in Lebanon, both the capital of Beirut and other parts of the country.
This was due to a coordinated attack caused by explosives that were planted in a number of pagers and walkie-talkie devices used by members of the Lebanese group Hezbollah, that Israeli Intelligence is confirmed to be responsible for.
The attack resulted in thousands of people being injured, many of whom were civilian bystanders, and 32 people being killed, with two of the casualties being children.
Oto spoke to John Minto from Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa, to discuss his reaction to the pager attack in Lebanon and how this could lead to a wider conflict in the Middle-East.
They also talked about New Zealand’s vote in favour for the UN resolution demanding an end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Unions say that the government's change to employment law restricting contractors from challenging their status in the employment court, is a step in the wrong direction.
The change comes off the back of the landmark decision by the employment court to grant four contract uber drivers the status of an employee. The government now wants to prevent this from happening again.
E Tū Union National Secretary Rachel Mackintosh says this change will lock in the exploitation which Uber’s current model relies on.
Producer Evie spoke to Mackintosh about why the government is implementing the changes and how it will negatively affect workers.
For their weekly catch up with Te Pāti Māori, Oto spoke to Mariameno Kapa-Kingi about Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori last week, Gang patch legislation passing into law, and New Zealand supporting a UN resolution, calling for an end of Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
He spoke to Nicole Wallace from the Tertiary Education Union to discuss a recent series of proposed cuts to short postgraduate courses at the University of Auckland.
And he spoke to John Minto from Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa to discuss Israel’s exploding pager attack in Lebanon last week, as well as New Zealand voting in favour of the UN General assembly resolution demanding an end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
For their weekly catch up, Evie spoke to the ACT Party’s Simon Court about restricting contract workers from challenging their employment status, and the ban on gang patches passing into law.
She also spoke to E Tū National Secretary Rachel Mackintosh about the same planned changes to the contractor employment law, why the Union opposes these, and what negative impact she believes it will have.
Around mid-August this year, senior management at the University of Auckland made an announcement saying that they were looking to cut a number of small postgraduate and undergraduate courses in the Faculty of Arts with less than 60 and 30 students respectively.
The University said that the cuts were being proposed to “optimise” course offerings and address classroom spacing issues. They also said that the cuts came about as a result of a routine review of courses regularly conducted by the University.
The announcement resulted in widespread outcry and condemnation by the University of Auckland’s senior academics and lecturers, saying that the University gave them a limited timeframe to review and contest the changes, and the decision to cut courses such as Huarahi Māori will have an impact on marginalised communities.
Oto spoke to Nicole Wallace, an organiser at the Tertiary Education Union who works with lecturers at the University of Auckland to discuss the course cut proposal and its implications for senior academics and lecturers.
Wire Host Caeden speaks to Yale Daily News’ Andre Fa’aoso on the anti-immigrant rhetoric from the Trump campaign towards immigrants in Springfield, Ohio as well as the apparent second assassination attempt against Donald Trump this campaign.
For our weekly catch-up with the Labour Party, Wire Host Caeden speaks to Labour’s Ginny Anderson about retail crime in the CBD, banning gang patches, and the Minister for Firearms not ruling out bringing back high-powered semi-automatic firearms.
For States of the States this week they speak to Yale Daily News’ Andre Fa’aoso about the situation in Springfield, Ohio after several weeks of Republican-led anti-immigrant rhetoric and the second assassination attempt against former president and Republican candidate Donald Trump.
And they speak to University of Otago Senior Lecturer Leon Goldsmith about the device explosions in Lebanon that have killed at least twenty-six people and injured thousands more.
For City Counselling this week, Sofia speaks to Councillor Shane Henderson about Mayor Wayne Brown’s proposal for a second harbour bridge from Point Chevalier to the North Shore as well as Council spending over 250K on beach stairs on Milford Beach.
She also speaks to Professor of Law at the University of Waikato, Leilani Tuala-Warren, about a recent proposal by Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa to recognise ecocide as a crime against humanity and whether Aotearoa should support the proposal.
Last week, the Green Party released a statement highlighting the recently released Dental For All report, which they say confirms that New Zealand can afford a free, universal public dental service.
And the recently signed Free Trade Agreement between India and New Zealand is being touted as a pivotal moment, garnering support from both Labour and National parties, however, NZFirst MP and coalition minister for Oceans and Fisheries, Shane Jones, expressed his opposition to the agreement with derogatory comments against potential indian immigrants that have drawn the ire of other parliamentary parties.
So for our weekly catchup w/ the Green Party, I spoke with MP Ricardo Menéndez March about the Green Party’s Dental policy and their stance on the Free trade agreement with India.
Since its inception in 2008, the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (or ETS) has been, according to the government, its primary tool to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and tackle the climate crisis. As part of the scheme, the government sets a price for carbon units, which companies must pay to offset their emissions. The Climate Change Commission has recently highlighted that the scheme was not stable and susceptible to changes in the market, and did not have sufficient carbon units to last until 2030, requiring urgent reform.
For Green World, Wire producer Liam spoke with Scott Burnett, the Regional Conservation Manager for the top of the South Island and Forest and Bird’s climate spokesperson about why Forest and Bird has called the system broken, what impact this has on Aotearoa and what reforms should be implemented.
Last week, NZ First MP and Government Minister Shane Jones was criticised over using derogatory language towards Indian Immigrants. These comments were condemned by the National Party and Christopher Luxon, who labelled NZ First’s belief system as ‘anti-immigrant’, and saidd Jones was ‘scaremongering’.
That was not the extent of criticism between NZ First and National, however, with tensions between the two sparking after NZ First Leader Winston Peters calling out Luxon for not giving coalition partners prior notice of his confidence vote during a national party caucus meeting last week. In turn, these comments have been dismissed, and Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Luxon accused NZ First and Peters of putting Labour Governments, like Arderns, into power. Despite all of this, however, Peters has insisted the coalition is as stable as a ‘three-legged stool’.
Last week also saw the Treasury announce that they would revisit their forecasts for the economy ahead of the impending government budget. The Government also announced some changes to the way Infrastructure is run by the government, giving more power to the Independent Infrastructure Commission, increasing their oversight and changing the way that Ministers receive advice and information.
This week, Host Alex spoke with National MP Ryan Hamilton about these developments, beginning with Shane Jones’ comments.
Despite a tenuous ceasefire, the fuel crisis - resulting from the US and Israel bombing of Iran, and subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz - drags on. Prices have remained high, hitting low-income households hard, and while fuel stocks in or on-the-way to the country sit comfortably above a month’s cover, approaches to conserving fuel remain front-of-mind for many.
One strategy that New Zealanders have been urged to adopt is switching to public transport, which would put fewer cars on the road. However, access is often dependent on location and affordability.
Over the past few years, the Ministry of Education has reviewed numerous rural school bus routes, cancelling some, cutting off students from ready access to their education.
For this week’s Get Action, producer Theo spoke to Alicia Hall from Parents for Climate Aotearoa, on their petition to restore rural school bus routes and make public transport free for children, and students under 25.
If you'd like to sign this petition, you can find it here.
Last week, the Green Party leaders, Marama Davidson and Chloe Swarbrick, hosted their state of the planet address, where they launched their call to electrify the nation.
On top of that, events this week have led the party to criticise the government. The first critique, instigated by the floods that swept the nation, hitting the Coromandel and causing a state of emergency in the Wellington Region, led the Greens to question the government's decreased funding of flood responses as harsh weather increases.
The second critique came with a cabinet paper this week that shows the government is planning on moving ahead with reforms to legislation that will see references to the Treaty of Waitangi and Te Tiriti o Waitangi redefined, in what the government sez is about ‘standardisation’ but what the Green Party sees as dishonouring Te Tiriti.
So for our weekly catch-up with the Green Party’s Ricardo Menéndez March, we discuss their criticisms of the government but start with a discussion of their electrification policy.
Last week, fuel stocks in the country went down by three or four days across each fuel type. The government recognised this as not enough to change to phase two in the national fuel plan, drawing some concerned comments from the political opposition around the state of our stocks, and when the government plans to actually move up phases.
Following a week that saw both Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon comment on the state of the Strait of Hormuz, and the way the United States has handled the ongoing conflict, Willis also travelled to the US to meet with White House advisors.
This week, Host Alex spoke with National MP Ryan Hamilton about these fuel crisis developments, and what the government’s approach going forward may look like.
To start our discussion, however, we spoke briefly about the confidence in Christopher Luxon’s Leadership.
Earlier this week, Councillor Julie Fairey moved a resolution to investigate Auckland Council’s involvement with companies that are complicit in Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.
And this week, Auckland Council launched an AI virtual assistant to report issues such as graffiti, roaming dogs, and noise complaints.
For City Counselling, Wire Host Caeden spoke with Councillor Julie Fairey about both of these topics.
Last Friday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown announced the signing of a new ‘City Deal’.
The deal will see closer partnership between the central government and Auckland Council, coordinating planning in areas such as infrastructure and transportation.
The deal will see a long-term partnership between the government and council, with regular meetings and cooperation on strategies for innovation and transportation, with reviews of sporting venues such as Eden Park and the Auckland Tennis Centre.
However, the deal has been critiqued by some as being a collection of promises without any new funding.
So for our weekly catch-up with the Green Party’s Ricardo Menéndez March, he and producer Theo discussed the signing of the Auckland City Deal, and how the Green Party would work with Auckland Council on issues such as transportation and infrastructure.
95bFM 
