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.
Tāmaki Makurau's rail network is undergoing a major rebuild, which will see rail lines across the city temporarily close over the coming years.
These services are expected to be replaced by buses.
Three regional transport agencies, including Auckland Transport are calling on immigration minister Michael Wood to urgently review immigration settings to address the country's bus driver shortage.
News and Editorial Director Jessica Hopkins spoke to Louisa Jones from First Union who is concerned that failure to address existing conditions for bus drivers could discourage people from using public transport.
On this week’s installation of Eurovision, I chat with our European Correspondent Cameron Adams from Berlin about Ukraine, elections in Bosnia, and more.
Casper speaks to David Seymour in our weekly chat with the ACT Party, this week, they chat about the ACT party's calls to reduce or scrap mandatory covid isolation periods, as well as their party fundraiser for Ukraine.
Emilia chats to Dr Sean Sturm from the Tertiary Education Union about their decision to strike for better pay.
She also chats with our European correspondent Cameron Adams in this week's installation of Eurovision
And News & Editorial Director Jessica Hopkins speaks to Louisa Jones from First Union about bus driver shortages across Aotearoa.
That's us for the Wednesday Wire! See you next week.
This week, the Wire with Christina kicked off with a Dear Science Nobel Prize special with Joel Rindelaub.
Christina also spoke to Dr Shane Reti from the National Party for their weekly segment, where they discussed meningitis and a bill to reduce alcohol harm
In the wake of last week’s poll results on whether Aotearoa should become a republic, Christina spoke with the New Zealand Republic campaign chair Lewis Holden.
She also spoke to Dr Roshini Peiris-John about her study on the impacts of skin tone on racial discrimination.
And earlier on Breakfast, the b farewelled Auckland Mayor Phil Goff as he prepares to retire from politics. Jess takes us all the way back to the outgoing mayor's very first bFM Breakfast interview with Mikey Havoc in 2017.
With the Nobel Prizes being handed out this week, Dr Joel Rindelaub dropped into the studio for Dear Science to discuss historic Nobel Prize snubs through the years with a common theme - they were all women. Joel and Christina had a kōrero about Rosalind Franklin, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Chien-Shiung Wu, Lise Meitner and Donna DeEtte Elbert, the work they did in their fields, and the men who took credit for it.
On Breakfast this morning, bFM Breakfast farewelled Auckland Mayor Phil Goff as he prepares to retire from politics.
The Wire team revisited his very first interview on bFM with Mikey Havoc all the way back in 2017. Rachel then asked Phil Goff about what he was able to achieve during his tenure.
A new study has found young people of ethnic minority backgrounds in Aotearoa are treated worse by police, health services and education providers if they look less white. The study is the largest in this field and backs up a vast amount of anecdotal evidence of prejudice in New Zealand society, and has opened up discussions of how we should address discrimination at an institutional and structural level.
Christina spoke to the study's co-author, Dr Roshini Peiris-John.
This week for the Wire's regular catchup with National’s Dr Shane Reti, Christina and Shane battled pesky audio issues to discuss World Meningitis Awareness Day as well as Chloe Swarbrick’s member’s bill for alcohol harm reduction.
Last week, a 1News Kantar Public Poll found 50% of Kiwis don’t want Aotearoa to become a republic. Just 27% said they were in favour of ditching the monarchy, a drop from last November, when the same question was asked.
To discuss this poll and whether it’s time for Aotearoa to become a republic, Christina spoke with Lewis Holden, chair of the New Zealand Republic campaign.
In 1923, Te Rangi Hīroa (Sir Peter Buck) documented the last confirmed capture of a special fish – the upokororo or New Zealand grayling. Now, researchers are using using its ancient DNA to finally provide some answers to how it went extinct.
Genetic data provides a new tool in the search for survivors. Environmental DNA in water samples from remote catchments can now be compared routinely to known DNA from the upokororo.
Fish populations are in sharp decline globally. Lessons learned from past extinctions, like that of the upokororo, can help us preserve fish species for future generations. Hopefully we can heed the lessons from the past.
Joe speaks to Dr Nic Rawlence from the Palaeogenetics Lab at the University of Otago 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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