The Wire with Joel

Twitter has agreed to sell its platform to Elon Musk for a mammoth sixty seven billion New Zealand dollars. 

Musk, who is a self-professed ‘free speech absolutist’ has given hints as to what he plans to do with the site regarding content moderation, user verification, and more.

Emilia Sullivan spoke to Greg Treadwell, head of the journalism department at AUT about what this acquisition of twitter by Elon Musk could mean.

This week on The Wire for Thursday!

We have our regular chat with Andrew Little. Tuva’a speaks to him about the new health system reforms.

Joe speaks to Jude Ball from the University of Otago about adolescent drinking trends. He also will be speaking to Breast Cancer Foundation Chief executive Ah-Leen Rayner about New Zealand’s lack of access to cancer drugs.

Emilia speaks to Sanat Singh from Make it 16 about their case to lower the voting age making it to the Supreme Court. She also speaks to Greg Treadwell from AUT about Twitter agreeing to a sale to Elon Musk.

That's us for the Thursday Wire!

We start off with a conversation with ACT’s Brooke van Velden about the housing crisis and how to boost housing supply. 

Stella then speaks with Angela Maynard from the Tenants Protection Association about the human rights commission’s call for an independent housing authority and rental WOFs

This is followed by Stella chatting with Georgia Pigot, an environmental social scientist from the university of auckland about the third round of funding for the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry Fund

Alex then speaks with Associate Professor Kevin Simon of the University of Auckland about microplastic pollution in freshwater. 

And then with Steven Trewick of Massey University about his research into six new Weta species in the alpine region of the south island.

Finally, Stella speaks with ben Birks Ang, deputy director of the NZ drug foundation, about recent police wastewater statistics showing increases in methamphetamine. 

Yesterday the honourable Megan Woods, Minister of Energy and Resources announced  the third round of the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry Fund will provide $13 million to 15 businesses to help them move away from fossil fuels. I spoke with Georgia Piggot,  an environmental social scientist from the University of Auckland, starting by asking her if the funding will inspire other businesses to follow suit, even if they aren’t receiving that funding