Today on the Friday Wire Casper talked to Auckland city counsellor Shane Henderson about the council passing the mayor’s climate budget, as well as the Ports of Auckland’s scrapped automation project. He also spoke to Clair Insley from the Vegan Society of Aotearoa about the importance of plant-based diets in combatting climate change.
Liam spoke to Richard Esther, as well as Paul Moon about Light Pollution, Matariki and how they intersect. Liam also spoke to Jessica Godfrey from Vicbooks about their closure in VUW’s Piptea campus due to the anti-parliment protests.
New Zealand, Australia and many countries are experiencing a further Omicron wave driven by the latest BA.4/BA.5 subvariants. Our response to this threat is remarkably laissez-faire compared with past approaches, as society has pivoted more to “living with the virus”. But in both New Zealand and Australia, there’s a real risk current policy settings will be insufficient to prevent health services being overwhelmed – and more will need to be done in coming weeks.
Joe spoke to Professor Michael Baker from the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago, Wellington, on the matter.
Joe speaks to Executive Officer Jane Cartwright from the New Zealand Breastfeeding Alliance and Paediatric Society neonatal specialist Nicola Austin about World Breastfeeding Week and what it means to Step Up for Breastfeeding. Joe also spoke to Dr Nic Rawlence, from the Paeleogenetics Lab at the University of Otago, about how deer may have had something to do with the extinction of moa, and how this ties in with making Stewart Island Predator Free.
Trishil speaks to Genna Hawkins-Boulton about the need to have compulsory consent education in schools - part of OurActionStation. He also chats with Professor Stephen Hoadley about a move made by Russia to ban 32 prominent New Zealand figures over ‘Russophobia’. Finally he speaks with Nicky Snoyink from Forest and Bird on their appeal against the consent granted to Stevenson Mining heading to the environmental court.
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.
Māori health inequity directly costs the health system $39.9 million per year, according to a new Indigenous-led study. When researchers added indirect costs of $823.4 million from lost years of life and lost wages, which were mostly borne directly by Māori whānau, the overall cost skyrocketed to over $863.3 million.
Māori significantly under-utilised primary care, creating an annual saving to the health system of $49.4 million per year. The authors point out that these are conservative estimates, and say that the 'cost of doing nothing' about health inequity is predominantly borne by Indigenous communities and society - less than 5% of the cost is borne by the health system.
Joe spoke to Rhys Jones, Associate Professor in Te Kupenga Hauora Maori, from the University of Auckland on the matter.
Welcome to the Thursday Wire! Milly joins the show as a producer, chatting to Ellen Rykers from Forest and Bird about the Bird of the Year results. Frances speaks to Ben Green for The Green Desk about flooding in Gisborne. Tuva'a has his weekly catch-up with Andrew Little and Stella speaks to Penny Hulse about the Future of Local Government Report. Stella also talks to the Cuban ambassador to New Zealand, Mr Edgardo Valdés López and Annalucia from Auckland Cuba Friendship Society about sanctions against Cuba by the US and the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Host Jessica Hopkins speak to Brooke van Velden for our weekly chat with the ACT Party.
A PhD student from the University of Auckland calls on Universities in Aotearoa to do more to condemn human rights abuses in Iran.
Chief Executive of the Environmental Defence Society, Gary Taylor, discusses the new bills meant to replace and simplify the Resource Management Act; the Natural and Built Environments Bill and Spatial Planning Bill.
And Theatre Director Barnie Duncan and Producer Ruby Reihana-Wilson have a kōrero about their project Siblings, which is exploring sibling relationships where one person has a disability.
Arno speaks to Peter Reynolds, CEO of the New Zealand Disability Support Network - a society of organisations that provide support to disabled people. The industry of disability service providers is an entirely government-funded collection of entities that provide free-of-charge services to those in need. Recent increases in costs of providing services have made it difficult for these organisations to provide the same level of care for a given budget.
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