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.
National’s newly announced proposed policy to deal with youth crime has drawn criticism from many. Among those condemning the idea of boot camps for youth offenders aged 10-17, is Lisa Woods, campaign director of amnesty international. Stella spoke to her on The Wire.
Welcome to The Wire for Rāhina Monday! Today, Spike speaks to Jason Attewell from Stats NZ about next year’s census asking questions about gender and sexuality. Stella speaks to Lisa Woods from Amnesty International about National’s policy plans for youth offending. On ActionStation Spike speaks to Hayden Eastmond-Mein from the New Zealand Drug Foundation about their petition pushing for cannabis decriminalisation. Stella speaks to Jacqui Southey from Save the Children about the well-being of Ukrainian children. Arno speaks to Steven Ratuva from the university of canterbury about the outcomes of COP27.
This week on OurActionStation, Spike speaks to Hayden Eastmond-Mein from the New Zealand Drug Foundation about their petition calling for cannabis decriminalisation and pardoning in Aotearoa.
Following the 27th annual UN Climate Change conference, known as COP27, landmark reparations known as Loss and Damage funds have been set up in order to allow wealthy countries to help poorer countries deal with the effects of climate change.
Arno spoke to Distinguished Professor Steven Ratuva of the University of Canterbury about the outcomes of COP27, including how New Zealand is helping to fight the effects of climate change on less developed countries.
To start off, Ratuva spoke about the purpose of the conference.
Joe covers the Tertiary Education Union rally which occurred outside the University of Auckland on Monday. He speaks to members of the Union on the matter.
Joe also speaks to Greenpeace’s plastics campaigner Juressa Lee about their renewed calls for a strong global plastics treaty. We’ve also got a report on Greenpeace activists who met The Hidden Gem, a deep sea mining drill ship, as it came into port in Mexico after conducting test mining in the Pacific.
David spoke to Auckland Counsellor Mike Lee for our regular segment, City Counselling. He also spoke to Hanna Habibi from the Iranian solidarity group and to Morgane Merien from the Christchurch Museum about Bug of the Year.
Tertiary Education Union members at Waipapa Taumata Rau The University of Auckland will begin a ban on entering and releasing student marks from 7 pm tonight until 7 pm on Friday November 18th.
Organiser Adam Craigie says the strike is a result of continuing frustration and anger from members over what they sey is an inadequate pay offer.
Currently, the University's best offer is contingent on removing important conditions such as retirement leave and does not match rising inflation.
Joe spoke to members of the Union during their rally about what their message to the University and students is.
The Hidden Gem, commissioned by Canadian miner The Metals Company, has just returned from eight weeks of test mining in the Clarion Clipperton Zone between México and Hawaii. One of the biggest vessels of its type in the world, the ship planned to mine 3,600 tonnes of polymetallic nodules from the seafloor in a trial that could pave the way for full scale commercial mining.
Greenpeace México activists met The Hidden Gem in kayaks holding ‘Stop Deep Sea Mining’ banners while Greenpeace Aotearoa campaigner James Hita delivered a message to the captain of the Hidden Gem via radio
Greenpeace Aotearoa has renewed calls for the government to advocate for a strong, legally-binding global plastics treaty as world governments meet at the first Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee meeting (INC1) in Uruguay this month. A petition for a plastics treaty that centres justice launched earlier this year by Greenpeace Aotearoa ahead of the United Nations Environment Assembly 5.2 and has already gathered over 29,000 signatures.
Joe spoke to Greenpeace’s plastics campaigner Juressa Lee on the matter.
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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