David Seymour has been sworn in as Deputy Prime Minister as per coalition agreements. He will be taking over from NZ First Leader, Winston Peters.
During his first speech as Deputy Prime Minister, Seymour said that the ACT Party would be “Labour’s worst nightmare”.
News and Editorial Director and Monday Wire Host, Joel, spoke to Michael Swanson — a PHD Candidate in New Zealand Politics from the University of Otago about what this will mean heading forward, what the role of deputy is, and if this will have an impact on the re-election of the current coalition government.
We’ve heard a lot about Key’s shock resignation - so much so it seems to have buried the resignation of another Prime Minister - Matteo Renzi in Italy. Renzi stood down after Italians convincingly voted ‘no’ in a referendum for his proposed constitutional refoms.
95bFM reporter Daniel Walker looked into why Renzi’s taking off, and found out it’s for a very different reason to that of our own Prime Minister.
Health Minister Jonathan Coleman has announced his decision to run for Prime Minister. Jonathan Coleman is one of many National members willing to lead New Zealand after John Key's resignation on Monday. During his resignation announcement, he endorsed Bill English as the next leader of the National Party. Other party members such as Judith Collins have also shown interest in running for the role of Prime Minister.
Media commentator Russell Brown spoke on this issue with bFM reporter Adel Abed.
This week we talked about how the Māori women's welfare league has taken a claim to the Waitangi Tribunal about the treatment of Māori children in state care, while we also got Marama's thoughts on the new prime minister and deputy prime minister.
During his time as Prime Minister, John Key promised to retain the current retirement age of 65. New Prime Minister Bill English has since said he "will not keep this pledge". Raising the retirement age to 67 could have significant impact on New Zealanders, both young and old. Retirement Commissioner Diane Maxwell spoke to 95bFM reporter Olivia Mortimer-Eade.
This week, Caitlin spoke to Jami-Lee Ross about the year that was 2016, the National Party's priorities going into 2017, and - in light of comments made this week by Prime Minister Bill English and Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett - whether or not he considers himself a feminist.
Tracey is at Rātana today so we spoke with her this morning while she was on the way there, she was driving Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and they’d stopped to get coffee in Levin. Lillian Hanly started by asking how it would work when Peters steps up to be Prime Minister.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern recently said she believes Aotearoa will become a republic in her lifetime. However, when John Key was Prime Minister he said it was unlikely this would happen. Lachlan spoke with Savage from New Zealand Republic about the chances of it happening, and what form it would take.
Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, and Mikey catch up this week about the contentious topic that is Capital Gains Tax, and the governments recent attempt to address ticket scalping. Mikey asks the Prime Minister if she has any big plans for International Women's Day on Friday, and how far have we really come on equality issues?
Mikey catches up with the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, about her plans to tackle social media with other world leaders, the decision on capital gains tax and as it's their last chat, Mikey asks why the Prime Minister loves 95bFM. Aww.
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