It's a Drive Island! Milly and Tuva'a broadcast from the Ellen Melville Centre - listen back for great live music from Tusekah and From Outside, brought to you by NZ On Air Music(and biscuit commentary thanks to Kev).
Featuring members of Tāmaki Makaurau collective and rap crew From Outside for a major set at the Ellen Melville Centre on a sunny evening. Ngā mihi Spewer, Dizzy Dash, A.R.K and Sven Illy for bringing the energy. Brought to you by NZ On Air Music!
For our weekly catch-up with the Labour Party, Wire Host Caeden spoke to Deputy Leader Carmel Sepuloni about Labour’s caucus reshuffle and the Taxpayers Union-Curia poll.
For International Desk, they spoke to University of Waikato Senior Lecturer Garritt Van Dyk and Yale Daily News’ Andre Fa’aoso about the emerging protest movements against the Trump administration in the United States.
For City Counselling, Producer Sara spoke to Councillor Julie Fairey about the rise in homelessness in Tamaki, as well as Auckland Council’s recent announcement of an AI digital assistant for customer service support.
Auckland Council’s Community Committee has sent a ‘please help’ letter to the government after reports from their Community Impact team showed a 53% rise in the number of people sleeping rough over the past four months.
This follows changes last year by the Ministry of Social Development to the rules surrounding emergency housing, introducing stricter entry criteria and new requirements which make it difficult to stay.
While Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, earlier this week, denied that these changes have led to an increase in homelessness, Housing First Auckland programme manager Rami Alrudani said that outreach workers have been stretched thin, dealing with “more and more homelessness every day”.
Producer Sara spoke with Councillor Julie Fairey about the rise in homelessness in Tāmaki Makaurau.
As well, Auckland Council are trialling an AI digital assistant to help improve their customer support services.
The ‘Ask Auckland Council’ pilot, presented at February’s Revenue, Expenditure and Value Committee, is being funded by Google Cloud at no cost to ratepayers.
Auckland Council receives 1.5 million calls every year and coordinates region-wide services across multiple platforms. The new system is designed to bridge the gap between Aucklanders and digital services, reducing the effort required to seek out information
Starting on the topic of homelessness, Sara asked Julie if she was surprised to see a stark increase in the latest data around the number of people sleeping rough.
The United States is seeing a surge in backlash to the Trump administration's policies, particularly those focused on undermining Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion domestically and the administration’s foreign policy position on Palestine.
Wire Host Caeden spoke to University of Waikato Senior Lecturer in history Garritt Van Dyk about the history of boycotts and the resurgence of this protest tactic against Trump.
They then spoke to Andre Fa’aoso from the Yale Daily News for his perspective from the ground on these growing opposition movements, particularly the impact of these movements within Universities.
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