Since Covid there has been a bus driver shortage leading to around 1000 buses being cancelled every day. Alex talked to Dennis Maga, the General Secretary of First Union about the challenge to recruit drivers. Pay is part of the problem but so are working conditions. Maga describes the realities of doing split shifts, the impact on health and family life, and how bus drivers feel a duty of care for their passengers even when they are subjected to verbal and, occasionally, physical abuse.
A massive study has been undertaken involving tens of thousands of accounting questions across hundreds of university campuses. These questions were fed into ChatGPT AI software, and the answers marked by the professors as though they were student’s answers.
The results were quite astonishing.
Arno spoke to Ruth Dimes, Business masters programme director at the University of Auckland, to find out more about the study and to see how real humans stack up against our AI counterparts. Arno started by asking about the aims of the study.
AUKUS - a security pact signed between Australia, the UK and the US is a contentious topic for Aotearoa New Zealand.
Due to its pro-nuclear sentiments, New Zealand has been inherently hesitant to join the pact because of the impact it could have on New Zealand’s diplomatic relations with its Asia-Pacific allies.
Anti-AUKUS sentiments have dominated the political discourse around the topic, with many academics and politicians past and present against the pact because of the geopolitical tensions it could muster. Former Prime Minister Helen Clark called the AUKUS deal an “entanglement” that New Zealand shouldn’t get itself into.
To receive more input, Andre Fa'aoso spoke with Doctor Arama Rata, an independent researcher and spokesperson for Te Kuaka, a group that advocates for progressive foreign policy.
It has been 10 years since the Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh that killed over a thousand garment workers. It was seen as a flashpoint in the fast fashion industry and led to some change. But fast fashion is still popular and workers and the environment are still exploited by the industry. Mike Lee is an associate professor in marketing at Auckland university, and he discussed the Rana Plaza collapse as well as why fast fashion is still popular even though more is now known about the conditions many workers face. Mike began by discussing what happened in Bangladesh in 2013.
A measles case has been confirmed in Aotearoa for the first time since 2019.
This comes as childhood immunisation rates are at some of the lowest levels in modern times.
News and Editorial Director Jessica Hopkins spoke to Vaccinologist at the University of Auckland Helen Petousois-Harris, who says it would take a “miracle” for Aotearoa to avoid a measles outbreak.
She started off the interview by asking Petousis-Harris why we should be concerned about measles.
The Disinformation Project released a report last week which confirmed that since Posie Parker's arrival in Aotearoa in late March, there has been an increase in anti-trans hate in far right circles.
Caeden spoke to Awhi Marshall (Te Arawa, Tainui) who is a student and InsideOut Kōaro board member on her perspective on the report as a trans and takatāpui person with experience in this space. Awhi uses she/they pronouns.
Caeden also spoke John Fenaughty, a cis (he/him) Senior Lecturer in Counselling, Human Services and Social Work at Waipapa Taumata Rau the University of Auckland. John spoke on anti-trans discrimination and the role of academics in gathering this data. Here are these interviews.
Crime in the Auckland CBD has been on the rise for multiple years now, with many reports of people feeling unsafe. Today Milly from the Tuesday Wire conducts a report into what the statstics are, what is causing the current spike in crime and what some possible solutions might be, to make you feel more safe and to work towards reducing the crime rate. Many thanks to James Oleson, Criminology, University of Auckland, the School of Social Sciences, for the data that helped to create this report.
The Exhibition "Let Us Drink the New Wine, Together!" has been curated by Alys Longley and Máximo Corvalán-Pincheira in collaboration with over 100 artists worldwide.
It is on until 13 May, in person at the Malcolm Fisher Gallery in Howick and online.
Alex Bonham spoke to Alys Longley, an Associate Professor at the University of Auckland's School of Dance talks about how the work is rooted in multi-disciplinary and multi-site collaboration pushing at the borders that divide despite or perhaps because it all began with artists being trapped at home during the Covid lockdown.
The Auckland Council budget is holding public services hostage - that was what PSA had to say about Mayor Brown’s Auckland Council budget proposal. On the chopping board in Brown’s budget is the selling of Auckland Council’s stake in Auckland Airport, which has been a consistent revenue stream for the council since Auckland’s district councils merged into the Supercity in 2010.
Tomorrow, Council members will vote on Mayor Brown’s budget proposal including whether to sell-off Auckland Councils Airport shares. To talk more about what implications the share sell-off could have for public services in Auckland, Andre Fa’aoso spoke with Ian Gordon, PSA National Sector leader for local government.
95bFM