The Wire with Joel

For our weekly catch-up with the Labour Party, Wire Host Caeden spoke with Shanan Halbert about benefits changes for 18 and 19-year-olds, the Reserve Bank cutting the official cash rate, and the recent protests outside Winston Peters home. 

For International Desk, they spoke to Acacia O’Connor from the Global Movement to Gaza about the experiences of activists detained by Israel.

And they speak to 95bFM reporter Castor Chacko who is on the ground at the protest against RocketLab outside the University of Auckland engineering building. 

On City Counselling this week, Producer Sanat spoke to Councilor Julie Fairey about Auckland’s voter turnout and the importance of casting your vote by the 11th of October 

He also spoke to the Executive Officer for the Child Poverty Action Group Sarita Divis about changes to the JobSeeker Benefit for 18-19 year olds.

With 2 days to go before voting closes, the voter turnout throughout Tamaki Makarau still remains low, with around 20 percent of eligible voters having cast their vote throughout the city. 

According to these statistics, voter turnout is tracking to be lower than 2022’s local elections which had a final turnout of 35.4 percent. 

Thursday Wire Producer Sanat talked to Julie Fairey today to give our listeners (and prospective voters) a final elevator pitch as to why they should vote in their local elections. 

They also talked about why it is that the design and structure of these elections are not conducive to higher voter participation and the change necessary to make civic participation cool again. 

The government announced two new initiatives aimed at moving young people out of benefit dependency, and are looking to motivate them to stay in work by providing a $1000 incentive if they are able to keep stable work for more than 12 months. In the same announcement, they stated that young adults, aged 18 and 19, will no longer be eligible for Jobseeker payments if their parents can support them, for which they set the bar as an annual household income of just over $65,000.

In addition to this, The Green Party conducted a public interview on Monday, with the families of the three New Zealanders who were detained by Israel aboard the Sumud flotilla. The goal of the flotilla was to break through Israel’s illegal blockade that has existed since 2007, and provide aid to those suffering in Gaza.

As a result of rising tensions towards the Government’s stance on Gaza, Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ Auckland home was vandalised on Tuesday, the day after the press conference where Chloe Swarbrick urged the Government to act against Israel. Peters then quickly blamed the vandilisation – where a protestor broke his window and left a note saying “welcome to the real world” – on what he described as the “radical left”.

For our weekly catchup with the Green Party’s Ricardo Menendez-March, Wednesday Wire Host Max speaks to him about the vandalisation of Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ Auckland home, what the Green Party is asking of the government as a next step in Aotearoa’s stance on Gaza. As well as the Government’s initiatives aimed at moving young adults towards independence.

We also spoke about Associate Education Minister David Seymour’s announcing a change to how the government contracts school attendance services.

For our weekly catchup w/ The Green Party, Wednesday Wire Host Max spoke with MP Ricardo Menendez March about the government’s initiatives aimed at moving young people out of benefit dependency, Associate Education Minister David Seymour’s announcement of changes to how the government contracts school attendance services, The Green Party interviewing the families of the three New Zealanders detained as part of the Sumud flotilla, as well as Foreign Minister Winston Peters' action to blame the “radical left” for the vandalisation of his Auckland home.

Max also spoke with Paul Taillon, a Senior Lecturer from the Faculty of History, Arts and Education at The University of Auckland, to discuss the recent actions by United States President Donald Trump, to deploy the National Guard in democratic states and what this means for American democracy.

Producer Manny spoke with Associate Professor George Laking the government's announced changes to bowel Cancer screening.

Producer Manny also spoke with Craig Stevens, a Professor in the department of Physics, on the recently released Our Environment 2025 Report by the Ministry for the Environment.