Tāmati Kruger is the chair of the Te Urewera board, and chair of the Tūhoe tribal office, Te Uru Taumatua. When the original level 4 lockdown was announced, Tūhoe announced closures of freedom camping areas in the region. Since then, they’ve also set up some checkpoints. A number of iwi throughout the motu have set up their own checkpoints as a way of reducing the possibility of the virus being brought into those areas. There has been very varied responses to these, and they are indeed operating in a varied nature. Tūhoe have since announced that in the shift to level 3, much of their level 4 restrictions in place will remain the same. This is because the risk of a devastating outbreak in their community remains high due to the access to healthcare in the area, as well as preexisting conditions that disproportionately affect Māori. Lillian asked Tāmati if they could have a chat about some of these issues and started by asking how his rāhui period has been at home.
Zoë Larsen Cumming has a report on Amnesty International’s call for the release of prisoners of conscience.
Sherry Zhang has her weekly chat with Green party co-leader James Shaw following up on budget announcements, 1.1 billion investment into nature based jobs, climate change, unemployment support and the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act.
Finally, Southern Cross with Pacific Media Centre contributing editor Sri Krishnamurthi on West Papua, media restrictions in the Phillipines and Hong Kong, and the state of NZ media.
This Wednesday a report of the Resource Management Act (RMA), New Directions for Resource Management in New Zealand, was welcome by the government. This was commissioned by the Environment Minister, David Parker, with the recommendation being to completely scrap the RMA and replace it with two new pieces of legislation, a Natural and Built Environments Act and a Strategic Planning Act. In an effort to understand more about the RMA, producer James Tapp talks to Minister Parker live on air about the RMA and its future.
Yesterday, former Broadcasting Minister and outgoing Labour MP Clare Curran said the nature of reporting in Aotearoa was destructive. She said there is a toxic culture at Parliament, that is systemic and not the fault of anyone in particular. Mary-Margaret wanted to find out how accountability should be dealt with if issues are systemic, in the context of a Westminster model of governance that encourages combative politics and combative political media. She spoke to Associate Professor Neal Curtis about how complex this issue is, and if we are discussing the root of the problem accurately.
Wednesday’s report on the Resource Management Act, called New Directions for Resource Management in New Zealand, was welcomed by the government. It was commissioned by Environment Minister David Parker, and it recommended completely scrapping the RMA and replacing it with two new pieces of legislation: the Natural and Built Environments Act and the Strategic Planning Act. James Tapp spoke to National’s environment spokesperson Scott Simpson, after having interviewed Minister Parker too.
Last week the government announced that a series of products are to be placed on a priority list as part of the waste minimization act, which includes e-waste, which Hannah covered yesterday, as well as a range of plastics. By doing so, levvys will be put in place and requirements to create more integration into the circular economy. The circular economy is an idea which revolves around the fact that many of the products do not go in a full circular fashion as materials do in nature, instead ending up in places such as landfills. While the intention is positive, there is potential for unintended consequences as voiced by the plastic industry. To understand more of their concerns, James talks to Rachel Barker, the CEO of Plastics NZ, about what this will mean for the future.
Today on the Wire with Zoë:
Zoë has her weekly chat with Green Party co-leader James Shaw regarding new environmental projects and an update on the Green School controversy.
95bFM's Election Coverage is back, and this week's theme is housing.
Producer Aneeka Moheed interviews the National Council of Women in New Zealand's Lisa Lawrence on statistics showing 90.91% of people who lost their job in New Zealand due to Covid 19 were women.
Zoë Larsen Cumming interviews natural language processor and Artificial Intelligence programmer Alistair Landels on conversational interactions with bots and AI.
Aneeka Moheed interviews Gina Dellabarca from the Show Me Short's Film Festival on how it plan to operate due to Covid 19 changes.
This week Zoë Larsen Cumming has a pretty broad chat with the Green Party co-leader James Shaw on the dairy industry, New Zealand’s waterways and their Farming For Future Plan. They also chat about the lack of Māori issues brought up in the first leaders debate, and why we only have debates with two party leaders when we have an MMP system. They also touch on how the world failed to meet a single target to stop the destruction of nature and why climate change is presented as a partisan issue. Big stuff! Check it out.
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