The Wire with Joel

This week on the Tuesday Wire...

For Dear Science, our expert, Dr. Cushla McGoverin, chats with us about early human subspecies Denisovan, plants having a second set of roots, and sea spiders farming bacteria. 

In our weekly catch-up with the National Party’s Tom Rutherford, Wire host Castor asked about plans to scrap the nationwide census and concerns from statisticians around the decision. 

They also spoke to Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Victoria, Dr. Lara Greaves, about how the census changes could impact Māori and issues around data sovereignty and surveillance.

Producer Faith spoke to researcher Nusch Herman from the Co-Created Ageing Research Centre about normalising having older adults in the workplace.

The government is considering changes to the rules surrounding who can ride bikes on the sidewalk and e-scooters in the bike lane. Currently e-scooters are not allowed in the bike line, despite many riders using it, and bikes can only be ridden on the sidewalk by young children.

The government is planning to change this, allowing e-scooters in the bike line legally, and raising the age cap for bike riding on the sidewalk.

Producer Samantha spoke to Tim Jones, President of Living Streets Aotearoa regarding these proposed changes and their implications.

Recently, Statistics Minister, Shane Reti, has announced that Stats NZ will be moving away from the Census to collect data, cancelling the next scheduled Census in 2028.

The move will result in data already collected by government agencies to be used as the primary source of population data.

To ensure minority communities are accurately portrayed in national data, Stats NZ say they will be working with these communities, with plans to implement smaller surveys and targeted data collection.

However, concerns have been raised about whether this is enough.

News and Editorial Director and Monday Wire Host, Joel, spoke to Liza Bolton, a Professional Teaching Fellow in the Department of Statistics at the University of Auckland, about this move, and her concerns regarding moving away from the Census to collect data.

Statistics Minister Shane Reti has announced that the Census form will be scrapped and instead replaced with smaller surveys and administrative data.

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon expressed openness to reducing sick leave entitlements.

And tensions between Israel and Iran continue to escalate as Israel’s war on Gaza continues, threatening global security.

For our weekly catch-up with the Labour Party, Wire Host Caeden spoke with Deputy Leader Carmel Sepuloni about both of these topics.