Following a consistent year of pressure, the Victoria University of Wellington has announced its divestment from all Israeli government bonds and shares. The foundation has previously reported having close to $50,000, which they have divested following major Student sit ins and pushback.
The divestment is only the first step in a long process of boycotting Israel, however there is continued student backing and a recent petition attempting to further progress the severing of ties to Israel.
Producer Sasha spoke to spokesperson for Student Justice for Palestine Poneke, Frank Mackenzie about how continued student pressure led to University of Victoria Wellington divesting from Israeli bonds and stocks.
For our weekly catchup, News and Editorial Director, Joel, spoke to The Green Party's Ricardo Menéndez March about recent changes to the treaty principles bill to include acknowledgements to Iwi and Hapu, government pay parity cuts for relief ECE teachers and concerns over Nicole McKee’s gun law reforms.
For our bi-weekly segment Get Action! Wednesday Wire Host, Oto, spoke to ActionStation’s Kareana Kee, about their petition calling for TVNZ to review their coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza.
Producer Sasha spoke to spokesperson from Student Justice for Palestine Pōneke, Frank Mackenzie, about the Victoria University of Wellington Foundation divesting in Israeli bonds.
and Oto spoke to Associate Professor in Commercial Law at the University of Auckland, Gehan Gunasekara, to discuss the implications of the IRD sharing taxpayer data with social media firms.
On the 29th of August, TVNZ aired a news story covering the recent Israeli raids into the West Bank in Occupied Palestine, which they described as the “largest counter-terrorism strike” in the West Bank in 10 years.
The raid, which persisted for a week, killed at least 30 Palestinians, two of whom were confirmed to be children.
Many of those who witnessed the coverage said that this new story, like others by TVNZ, used biassed media framing to depict the Israeli Defence Forces favourably while ignoring Palestinian civilian casualties and the context of the occupation.
For this week’s Get Action! Wednesday Wire host Oto spoke to Kareana Kee who launched a petition calling for TVNZ to review their coverage of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Earlier this week, ACT leader David Seymour announced that the basic outline of the treaty principles bill, which would be introduced to parliament in November later this year, would include acknowledgements saying that iwi and hapū had specific rights to their lands.
This comes after more than 400 Christian leaders in Aotearoa signed a joint letter condemning the bill and asking MPs to strike it down, as well as Prime Minister Christopher Luxon making an official statement saying that he wouldn't support the bill beyond its first reading.
For our weekly catch up, News and Editorial Director, Joel, spoke to the Green Party’s Ricardo Menendez-March to discuss the recent changes to the treaty principles bill and whether or not it guaranteed protections for Iwi and Māori.
We also talked about government cutting pay parity agreements for relief teachers at Early Childhood Education Centres, as well as Concerns over Nicole McKee's efforts to reform gun laws
It recently came to the public’s attention that the Inland Revenue Department had been providing social media firms with the personal details of taxpayers to be used in marketing campaigns.
While the IRD have tried to reassure taxpayers that their details were anonymised using a hashing process that would replace the letters in their names with numbers, many have raised concerns about the potential privacy implications that could come with their personal data being sold to social media companies, as well as the efficacy of the hashing process itself.
Wire Host Oto spoke to Gehan Gunasekara, Associate Professor in Commercial Law at the University of Auckland, to discuss the IRD’s selling of taxpayer data to social media firms and its potential implications.