Listen back to features and interviews from 95bFM's daily news and current affairs show. Joel Armstrong, Castor Chacko, Oto Sequeira, and Caeden Tipler focus on the issues of Tāmaki Makaurau and elsewhere in independent-thinking bFM style. Monday-Thursday 12-1pm on 95bFM.
Proper compensation for survivours of institutional child sexual abuse has long been a difficult issue to navigate, as current frameworks across commonwealth jurisdictions leave many questions regarding financial redress unanswered.
In light of New Zealand's recent Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, as well as Australia’s 2017 Royal Commission, and a 2022 independent inquiry from England and Wales, a team of legal experts from New Zealand, Australia, and the UK will be investigating, and comparing each jurisdiction to develop appropriate frameworks for addressing institutional abuse.
Producer Athena spoke to Brian Coote Chair in Private Law, and Professor at the University of Auckland, Dr Jodi Gardner, about the importance of this research, and what the team hopes to develop.
Following a year of Government Budget cuts in response to the current recession, economists and social service workers have expressed concern about the effects current fiscal policies will have on New Zealanders.
In December 2024, Finance Minister, Nicola Willis, revealed that the government's plans to reduce social service spending could lead to 3900 jobs being cut. Around the same time, Auckland City Mission CEO, Helen Robinson, warned that food banks face closures in 2025.
Producer Athena spoke to Economist, and Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Auckland, Dr Susan St John, about how the recession, and cuts to social services will affect New Zealanders.
For our weekly catchup with the ACT Party's Simon Court, News and Editorial Director, and Monday Wire Host, Joel, speaks to him about issues with the government’s ‘revamped’ school lunches programme, oral submissions on the Treaty Principals Bill, and ‘xenophobic’ comments made by NZ First MPs in Parliament.
Joel also spoke to the Transport Planner for Movement; an alliance of national organisations advocating for safe and accessible active transport in Aotearoa, Bevan Woodward, about the government changes to speed limit restrictions.
Producer Evie spoke to Massey University's Professor of Sustainable Energy and Climate Mitigation, Ralph Sims, about the government’s second climate target for 2035.
Joel spoke to the President of Renters United, Zac Thomas, about the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill coming into effect as of Thursday last week, which would grant landlords the right for no-cause evictions.
And Global Innovator, Matt Hart, joins us in studio to discuss AI.
The government has announced the reversal of blanket speed limit restrictions in 38 sections of New Zealand’s road network with new Transport Minister, Chris Bishop, announcing a further 49 sections will be set to be reviewed during public consultation in the coming months.
This would increase the speed limits in multiple areas, from the Northland region to the top of the South Island.
These developments have faced mixed reactions, with many local leaders deeming this move “reckless”.
There are concerns that in certain regions, the reversal of speed limits would be on stretches of roads that have schools, a shared pathway, and communities.
On Friday, News and Editorial Director, and Monday Wire Host, Joel, spoke to the Transport Planner for Movement; an alliance of national organisations advocating for safe and accessible active transport in Aotearoa that had previously placed an application for judicial review into the decision, Bevan Woodward, about the government changes to speed limit restrictions, and the group’s concerns regarding this.
They started off by asking if there was adequate reasoning for the reversal of speed limits in these sections.
Last week the government announced their second climate target, in accordance with the Paris Agreement.
The target outlines how much emissions need to be cut by 2035. The government has chosen a target of getting emissions down by 51 - 55% compared to 2005 levels. This is only 1% higher than their previous target.
The announcement has been slated as unambitious, particularly in relation to comparable nations, as well as developing countries.
However, with the proposed climate policies from the government, many of which aren’t even in place yet, Aotearoa isn’t forecasted to reach this goal.
On Friday, Producer Evie spoke to Massey University's Professor of Sustainable Energy and Climate Mitigation, Ralph Sims about the target and how realistic it really is.
As of last week, the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill came into effect, allowing landlords to end a periodic tenancy without needing to give a specific reason, changing legislation introduced by the previous Labour government in 2020.
The government says the bill, which passed its third reading in December, is aimed at enticing more rental properties to be in the market.
However, this move has raised concerns from those renting, due to concerns such as retaliatory evictions from landlords.
On Friday, News and Editorial Director, and Monday Wire Host, Joel, spoke to the President of Renters United; an advocacy group of renters, Zac Thomas, about the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill coming into effect.
They started off by asking how the organisation is feeling about this amendment as a whole.
For our weekly catch-up with the Labour Party Wire Host Caeden speaks to Labour’s Carmel Sepuloni about the oral submissions on the Treaty Principles Bill and Luxon’s State of the Nation speech where he revealed National’s intention to campaign on asset sales next election.
For the final State of the States, they speak to Andre Fa’aoso from the Yale Daily News about recent executive orders from Trump, the near-miss trade war with Colombia, DeepSeek AI, and the future of the Trump presidency.
For City Counselling this week, Producer Sofia speak to Councillor Julie Fairey about Auckland Council’s progress on storm recovery, two years on from the Auckland Anniversary floods.
She also speaks to Professor of Māori Studies at the University of Auckland and te Tiriti o Waitangi expert, Margaret Mutu, about the Treaty Principles Bill oral submissions hearings which began this week.
Oral submissions to the Select Committee on the divisive Treaty Principles Bill began this week on Monday. This comes after the Bill’s submission deadline was extended earlier this month and over 300,000 written submissions were made. The committee is set to listen to 80 hours of submissions over the next month, from a variety of academics, legal experts, activists, and community groups.
Producer Sofia spoke to Professor of Māori Studies at the University of Auckland and te Tiriti o Waitangi expert, Margaret Mutu, about this, firstly asking her about what her expectations were going into this week.
It is a fact that what makes Aotearoa New Zealand an amazing place to live is nature. Our export industries are built off the idea of a ‘clean, green New Zealand’, attracting tourists and food exports.
Greenpeace’s Executive Director Russel Norman claims that “Luxon’s relentless War on Nature burns the natural capital of Aotearoa for short term GDP growth.”
He has called it a ‘war on nature’, and says that the clean-up costs of a coal mine are greater than a full year of royalties that coal companies pay to the government.
Sasha spoke in depth about Christoper Luxon’s continued ‘war on nature’ with Russel, further speaking on international implications.
Auckland Transport has announced another parking fare increase, pushing up parking across AT-managed lots 50 cents per hour.
They justified the increase as necessary to cover ‘rising operational costs’ and to cover the Auckland Council’s increased resource commitment to supporting Aucklanders with “issues like blocked driveways, footpaths, and clearways”.
As well, Auckland Council have voted to endorse the redevelopment of Eden Park, in favour of a new waterfront stadium — bringing the latest development in a long-standing discussion about the best approach to attract tourism and financial productivity to Auckland.
All they need now is the government to pitch in $100 million dollars to fund the project.
Producer Sara started her interview with Shane Henderson by asking why raising parking prices was the preferred option for covering council operational costs
Just recently, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister, Brooke Van Velden, announced sweeping changes to health and safety regulations for businesses that she described as “low-risk”.
Some of the changes involved: narrowing the focus of the Health and Safety at Work Act to risks only causing death, serious injury or illness, creating a hotline for the public to report “overzealous” road cone placement and reducing "tick-box and safety activities" such as psychosocial harm policies for small businesses.
Around this same period of time, Greens MPs Tamatha Paul and Benjamin Doyle received intense media and political scrutiny for comments they made at a university panel and on social media respectively, with the backlash towards Doyle forcing them to abstain from parliament this week.
The Greens recently issued a call to the government to scrap their proposed changes to Early Childhood Care, which involve recognising qualifications other than early childhood teaching qualifications, removing up to 74% of ECE licensing criteria and removing requirements for regular updates and family.
In their weekly catchup with the Green Party’s Ricardo Menendez-March, Oto spoke to him about the party’s take on all of these issues.
BirdCare Aotearoa is a wild, native bird hospital that works to rehabilitate sick and injured birds back into the wild.
For their upcoming event: ‘Bird Heros,’ a part of EcoFest 2025 on the 6th of April, the workshop will look at the best practices on rescuing wild native birds, and will include a tour of their bird hospital, which is not usually open to the public.
For this week's Green Desk, Producer Leilani spoke to the Hospital Manager at BirdCare Aotearoa, Pooja Dorle, about the rehabilitation processes of birds within their hospital ahead of their next workshop.
Fellow Green Desk Producer Liam, and News and Editorial Director Joel, went to the previous workshop over the weekend, and spoke to the Chair of the organisation, Kevin Furgeson, and volunteer Marina, and had a tour of their facilities. Thanks EcoFest!
BirdCare Aotearoa also has a fundraiser running to shed light on seabirds affected by street lights and brightly lit buildings across the city, affecting their migration patterns and causing birds, such as the protected Petrels, Shearwaters, and Prions, to fall and injure themselves. To support their clinical rehabilitation practices, you can support their campaign on givealittle.
For a number of years, Aotearoa has been dealing with a shortage of psychologists and similar professionals to deal with the growing mental health needs of the wider population, with estimates suggesting that an additional 1,000 more psychologists are needed to fill gaps in the profession.
In response to the country’s growing mental health needs, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey announced a new Associate Psychologist role, consisting of recent post-graduates, to work alongside fully trained Psychologists.
However, a number of Psychologists and experts have criticised the introduction of this new role, saying that these associate Psychologists may be expected to take on the responsibilities of clinical Psychologists despite being underqualified.
For this week’s Get Action! Oto spoke to Dr Kumari Valentine, a clinical psychologist based in Dunedin, who’s launched a petition calling on the government to roll back the introduction of the new Associate psychology role and look to other methods of filling gaps in the Psychology profession.
If you're interested in signing this petition, you can find it here:
Last week the Green Party’s Tamatha Paul made comments about police presence in Wellington, particularly how increased police activity made some feel unsafe. She also noted some discriminatory and harmful behaviour from police officers towards Wellington’s homeless population. These comments, presented at a panel hosted by the University of Canterbury’s Greens and Peace Action Ōtautahi, were Paul restating feedback she had received from her constituents in Wellington central.
The response to Tamatha Paul’s comments was extremely critical from all sides of the political spectrum, involving feedback such as “insane” from prime minister Christopher Luxon, “unwise” and “stupid” from Labour leader Chris Hipkins, and “just weird” from ACT leader David Seymour. The comments and their responses lead to a series of articles across all major New Zealand news networks.
In our weekly catchup with the National Party, Wire host Castor spoke to MP Tom Rutherford about the substance of Tamatha Paul’s comments and whether the seemingly disproportionate reaction is appropriate.
This week on Dear Science our expert Dr. Cushla McGoverin chatted with us about various April Fools pranks in the world of science, including the 'Sheep Albedo Hypothesis' from here in Aotearoa.
Thanks to MOTAT, the museum inspiring the innovators of tomorrow!
On Sunday, Finance Minister, Nicola Willis, announced plans to combat the supermarket duopoly between Foodstuffs and Woolworths. This could include breaking-up or restructuring the current chains, with Cabinet also announcing a formal request for information, or RFI, into the matter.
For our weekly catch up, News and Editorial Director and Monday Wire Host, Joel, spoke to Te Pāti Māori’s Takutai Kemp about this announcement, and whether she, and the party, thinks this will be enough to address food accessibility in Aotearoa.
We also discussed the comments made by Green MP, Tamatha Paul, about the police, and whether she believes these comments have become sensationalised.
Finally, we discussed the party’s calls for mandatory police body cameras.
But first, they started off by asking Kemp about how the party are feeling about Nicola Willis’ most recent announcements into the supermarket duopoly.
Last week, the government announced its plans for reforming the Resource Management Act, or the RMA, introducing two acts to replace the current RMA. The plan is to bring the two acts before the select committee next year, passing them just before the next election.
For our weekly catch up News and Editorial Director and Monday Wire Host, Joel, spoke to the ACT Party’s Simon Court about this reform, working with the opposition, and the lack of a Treaty clause.
We also talked about concerns that the health and police system in Aotearoa are failing, following an 11-year old being misidentified as a 20-year old by police and being administered antipsychotic drugs.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters gave a “State of the Nation” speech last weekend where he strongly criticised Labour and announced his party was declaring a “war on woke.”
The government has announced a new replacement for the Resource Management Act, looking to pass it before the next election.
And Labour Foreign Affairs spokesperson David Parker has criticised the government for not condemning Israel in the context of recent military action and the blocking of humanitarian aid in Gaza.
For our weekly catch-up with the Labour Party, Wire Host Caeden spoke to Deputy Leader Carmel Sepuloni about all of these topics.
Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added to a Signal group chat with top United States security officials who were discussing military plans for strikes on Yemen.
The group chat discussed operational details, and officials, including the Vice President JD Vance, seemed unaware of Goldberg’s presence.
Jeffrey Goldberg initially left out some of these sensitive details in his article on the group chat but has released more specific information after the Trump administration downplayed the situation and said no classified information was shared.
For International Desk, Wire Host Caeden spoke to Andre Fa’aoso from the Yale Daily News about this issue.
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