Last week on Thursday, the Government announced the Wellbeing Budget 2021: Securing our Recovery. The Government says they want to get New Zealand back on track following the Covid-19 pandemic by creating jobs and tackling long term problems such as child poverty, housing and the climate crisis.
News and Editorial Director Jemima Huston focuses on four key parts of the budget - benefits, climate, mental health and education - and breaks down the numbers and responses from the public. This piece highlights some of the work of our newest News Teamers - Ben Haigh-McShane, Conor Head-McCarthy and Emily Bell - who have been conducting interviews about the budget over the last few days.
Last Thursday, the Budget for 2022 was released. This years budget comes ahead of what could be a significant overhaul of the research, science, and innovation sector of science in the coming years. Joe spoke to Professor Nicola Gaston, from the Department of Physics at the University of Auckland, about what this year's budget means for the Science and Research Community
Last week the government released its budget, announcing cuts and new funding across sectors. Particularly notable were the tax cuts, promised during the campaign last year to support lower and middle-income families. The government’s calculator indicates that many will not receive a significant amount of money from these cuts, with those on high incomes benefiting the most.
The budget also contained changes to fees free in universities, moving the free year from students’ first year to their last.
Additionally, before the budget announcements, the government also scrapped the first home buyers grant, a policy introduced to support New Zealanders into their first homes.
In our weekly catchup with the National Party, Wire Host Castor spoke to MP Tom Rutherford about the first home buyers bonus, public reception of the tax cuts, and the changes to fees free in universities.
The Budget 2024 has a notable lack of funding for Māori development and cuts to Māori housing.
In response, Te Kāhui Tangata, the Human Rights Commission, has urged the government to commit to te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Producer Sofia Roger Williams spoke to Tatau-Urutahi, shared leader at the Commission, Julia Whaipooti, about whether the Budget upholds te Tiriti and what it says about the government’s values.
She started the interview asking her what parts of the Budget concerned her.
The Budget 2024 includes cuts to funding for the environmental sector such as the Department of Conservation, the Ministry for the Environment, Environmental Legal Aid, and the Climate Change Commission.
Greenpeace Aotearoa has said these cuts provide more reason to join the March for Nature on this Saturday the 8th of June.
Producer Sofia Roger Williams spoke to Greenpeace Aotearoa Executive Director, Dr Russel Norman, about the march and Greenpeace’s response to Budget 2024.
She began their kōrero asking him what parts of the Budget concerned Greenpeace the most.
Last Thursday, the coalition government revealed its annual budget for 2024.
While the announcement highlighted the government's efforts to lower income tax and expenditure, the budget came under fire from many for what they say were cuts that would put our public services under even greater pressure, and created disappointing outcomes for Maori and marginalised communities across Aotearoa that failed to uphold the government’s obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
For their weekly catch up, Oto spoke to the Green Party’s Ricardo Menéndez-March to talk about budget 2024, with a specific focus on the areas of: Environmental Conservation, Tax and Te Tiriti obligations.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis made her Pre-Budget speech, in the leadup to Budget 2025, in which she announced that the government would be halving the operating allowance from $2.4 Billion to $1.3 Billion, going to a select number of government departments that Willis has described as “the most important priorities.”
The PSA have referred to the government’s cuts to the operating allowance as an “irresponsible recipe for failure” for the health system and public sector and plan to strongly oppose any job cuts for public servants or health workers.
Oto spoke with PSA National Secretary Fleur Fitzsimons to discuss the government’s pre-budget announcement.
Another significant funding gap in this year’s budget announcement was long-awaited funding for additional cancer treatments, particularly for blood cancer.
With no additional funding for blood cancer treatments announced in this year’s budget, patients, advocates and doctors have said that blood cancer patients have been left behind in the announcement and have called on the government to clear Pharmac's "backlog" of unfunded blood cancer medicines.
Oto spoke to Rodger Tiedemann, A Hematologist at Auckland City Hospital and Associate Professor of Cancer Research at the University of Auckland, about the lack of additional funding for blood cancer treatments in Budget 2025.
Tonight's show was actually entirely curated by bFM's own Samuel Harmony, who sent Oto and Jaycee, not just a playlist, but a stack of CDs and Casettes that he collected while he was in Indonesia as part of the New Zealand Delegation attending AXEAN Festival 2025. Whakarongo mai to experience 2 hours of Psych rock, folk, disco and more by Southeast-Asian artists playing at the festival!
Happy New Year and with that Walao starts off strong with Co-Host Jaycee showing us demos and his top plays and discoveries from 2025. From Hyperpop to experimental, what a treat!
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