bCasts

Penelope Noir is on the line with Rosetta and Milly - concluding our series of uniform-related chats, this week talking about Firefighters! Whakarongo mai nei!

The Tertiary Education Commission does not have enough funding for all student enrollments, meaning they’re carrying unsubsidised domestic students.

The living wage is increasing by 95c, to $29.90. It is calculated independently and released by Living Wage Aotearoa NZ. 

And from yesterday, the default rate for KiwiSaver contributions from both employers and employees has increased by half a per cent to 3.5 percent.

For our weekly catch-up with the Labour Party, Wire Host Caeden asked MP Shanan Halbert about all of these issues.

A new law change known as the Policing Amendment Bill is raising concerns about privacy and police powers in Aotearoa.

The bill would give police expanded powers, including the ability to record and retain short-lived videos in public.

Supporters say it will help police respond more effectively to crime, but critics are worried the rules are too vague, with a low threshold for collecting personal information and not enough safeguards around how that data is stored or used. There are also concerns that the changes could disproportionately affect Māori and young people.

Wire Producer Pranuja spoke to Gehan Gunasekara, Professor of Commercial Law at the University of Auckland Business School, about what this could mean for everyday New Zealanders.

This week, the government announced another change to Plan Change 120, Auckland’s plan for future housing developments across the city. Originally, the plan proposed a minimum housing capacity of 2 million homes, but many in central suburbs raised concerns that intensification could harm the character of their neighbourhoods. In February, the government lowered the minimum capacity to 1.6 million, which Auckland’s council and mayor spoke out against. 

Despite the disagreement, council developed new plans for the 1.6 million capacity. This week, however, the government announced plans to lower the minimum capacity further to 1.4 million, forcing council to make further changes to the plans. 

Also these past few weeks we’ve seen disagreements between the government and council over how best to manage the fuel crisis. The government has focused on payouts to middle and lower class families with children, but Mayor Wayne Brown says a better solution could involve subsidising public transport. 

To discuss each of these issues, News Director Castor spoke to Councillor Julie Fairey.