There are 38 organisations who are issuing a public call for Auckland Transport to urgently deliver the long overdue inner west cycle lanes and street improvements. Six of those are schools that want safer street for their students, there is the Grey lynn residents association, there are several businesses from ponsonby and K road that support the improvements and there are advocacy groups.
The Waitematā Safer Routes (also known as the Grey Lynn and Westmere improvements) is the project that hangs in the balance. It has been paused and this spawned criticism from the community who urge to continue the Grey Lynn and Westmere improvements.
The Waitematā Safer Routes are a vital link between the adjoining projects. Dropping the middle project would mean network benefits were lost, and the schools and communities of the inner west would be left disconnected.
There are 56 letters in support of Grey Lynn and Westmere improvements, while there are 6 letters opposing the improvements.
Daniel spoke with Mike Lee about his thoughts on the inner west cycle lanes and street improvements.
For their weekly catch up, Hanna spoke to Te Pāti Māori's Takutai Kemp about MP Meka Whaitiri quitting the Labour Party to join Te Pāti Māori. Whaitiri's statements indicate the jump was prompted by Labour dropping co-governance in its Three Waters reforms, disregarding obligations under Te Tiriti guaranteeing Māori authority over natural resources. They discussed what differentiates Te Pāti Māori from Labour, and why Whaitiri aligns herself more with the former than the latter.
Te Pāti Māori have also signed a letter with other inigenous peoples in the Commonwealth calling for the King to apologise for the harms of colonisation, and have a petition underway seeking to remove the British royal family as Aotearoa's head of state. Hanna and Takutai Kemp discussed these in light of the coronation of King Charles, and foundations for a Tiriti-centric Aotearoa.
Victoria University of Wellington has proposed significant cuts to staff and several courses including secondary education and theatre.
The University is blaming the underfunding of the tertiary sector and a drop in international and domestic student enrolments.
News and Editorial Director Jessica Hopkins first spoke to Senior Lecturer of Education at Victoria University Dr Margaret Gleeson about the secondary education programme, which is set to be cut completely.
She also spoke to Lecturer in Theatre Dr James Wenley at Victoria University. They started by discussing how the theatre programme, in particular, will be affected.
The Labour Party announced their tax policy over the weekend. It included policies like dropping GST off fruits and vegetables and changes to Working for Families.
The Policy has received some support, but several organisations advocating for the eradication of poverty and tax reform say it does not go far enough to address the wealth gap in Aotearoa.
Caeden spoke about this with Glen Barclay, Chair of Tax Justice Aotearoa and the Better Taxes for a Better Future campaign which is a coalition of 20 organisations aiming to work for better taxes to grow revenue and have a fairer tax system.
They started by asking Glen if Labour’s announcement is fair tax policy.
Caeden also spoke to economist Susan St John for the Child Poverty Action Group’s position on the announcement. As they have been quite critical of it, they started by asking what the issues were.
Each week News and Editorial Director Jemima Huston's interviewsTe Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.
This week Debbie updates Jemima on the progress of the party’s call for anti-Māori violence taskforce following the Police Commissioners 'no-show' to their meeting on the issue a few weeks ago. Then they discuss the significance of the Māori Party MPs accepting the Dawn Raids petition from Benji Timu and Josiah Tualamali'i. Finally, Jemima and Debbie touch on the Te Pāti Māori's concern over the huge drop in the number of prisoners able to access alcohol and drug programmes.
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