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.
Kia ora, and welcome to the Thursday Wire! This week, Stella speaks to Andy Robinson from World Vision about the education and mental health of Ukrainian children. She also speaks to conservation scientist Professor James Russell from the University of Auckland about his recent work, that shows Aotearoa is one of the highest contributors to pest eradication worldwide!
Green Desk is back as always, Frances updates us on the week’s environmental news, this week speaking to Watercare about one of their largest projects. Finally, Tuva’a has his regular catch-up with Labour’s Andrew Little, who responds to comments made by Brooke Van Velden, from the ACT party, about funding usage for ICU beds.
A recent study compiling international data has shown that Aotearoa is responsible for almost a quarter of international pest eradication on islands. Stella spoke to one of the contributors, University of Auckland’s Professor James Russell, a conservation biologist, about the nuances of the data.
This week Tuva’a chats with Labour’s Andrew Little about comments made by ACT’s Brooke Van Velden about ICU bed numbers, in bfm reporter Alex’s interview yesterday. They also talk about the outgoing speaker, Trevor Mallard's accomplishments in the role.
Frances speaks with Shane Cunis from Watercare about their Central Interceptor project- which just might be the biggest wastewater infrastructure project in Aotearoa.
People from across the country converged upon Parliament once again yesterday for a comparatively subdued protest by the Freedom and Rights Coalition led by Brian Tamaki.
However, Parliament grounds were not only full of people claiming high crimes against the government, it also attracted a significant turnout of counter-protestors. One of them was Teanau Tuiono from the Green Party, and Emilia chatted with him this morning.
The New Zealand Police are opening the recruitment door to people who have valuable skills but cannot navigate traditional employment processes.
The police have opened up roles in their financial crimes department specifically to applicants with Autism as a part of their Neurodivergence Programme pilot.
To discuss the programme, Trishil spoke to Detective Inspector Christiaan Barnard & Autism NZ's Dane Dougan.
Alex speaks to Brooke van Velden in his weekly chat with the ACT Party deputy leader.
Emilia chats with Teanau Tuiono from the Green Party about yesterday’s counter protest at Parliament.
She also chats with our European correspondent Cameron Adams about Ukraine, Monkeypox, and more.
Trishil chats about police advertising data and research analyst jobs exclusively for those on the spectrum with Detective Inspector Christiaan Barnard who’s heading the program, and Dane Dougan from Autism NZ.
That's us for the Wednesday Wire! See you next week.
The National Party has been claiming that the workforce shortages New Zealand is seeing is a result of mismanaged immigration policy.
This week, to address the workforce shortages, the government announced that skilled migrant workers will be able to be payed under the median wage, as well as a doubling of the working holiday scheme cap and an extension to currently held working holiday visas.
For Casper's weekly catchup with National MP Dr. Shane Reti, he asked him to explain what he thinks needs to happen regarding immigration policy, as well as how he views this latest announcement.
This week on the Tuesday Wire, Dr Allan Blackman joined Casper and Emily in studio to talk science news for our Dear Science segment. Casper spoke to Dr Shane Reti from the National party, as he does each week, this time discussing immigration policy. He also had a chat with the President of the Auckland branch of the Professional Firefighters Union about the industrial action they’re taking
Emily spoke with the Chief Executive of the New Zealand Orthopaedics Association Andrea Pettett to discuss the contentious ethics of private medical scanning. She also spoke to the Head of Nutrition at Beef + Lamb New Zealand, Regina Wypych about a recent study revealing an alarming increase in iron deficiency symptoms
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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