The Wire with Castor

On this week's Friday Wire:

Noah speaks to Christopher Luxon about his future career goals, Professor Andrew Gaddis about the Three Strikes Policy and Dr Elizabeth Kerekere about Oranga Tamariki.

Ilena also speaks to Councillor Pippa Coom about housing intensification, level 3.2 in Tāmaki Makaurau and electric buses.

Have a nice.

On their weekly chat, Justin and Health and GCSB Minister Andrew Little talked about the GCSB retiring the satellite dishes at Waihopai, home isolation for postive Covid community cases, and drugs to treat Covid.

Justin also spoke to Anti-Base Campaign's Murray Horton on retiring the Waihopai satellite dishes.

Producer Joe Wickins spoke to the University of Auckland's Kate Hannah on the spread of misinformation and disinformation since the Delta outbreak.

He also spoke to Judy Lawrence of Victoria University of Wellington on said how local leaders and planners can reduce risks from coastal threats without waiting for law reform.

The GCSB has said it will retire and remove the domes and satellite dishes at its Waihopai station after thirty years of service.

The GCSB’s Director-General Andrew Hampton said the dishes have reached the end of their service life and become obsolete under changes of global telecommunication and information technology.

Mr Hampton also said information obtained by the dishes at Waihopai only accounts for half a percent of all intelligence produced by the bureau last year.

The Minister responsible for the GCSB Andrew Little said in a statement that retiring the Waihopai satellite dishes does not diminish New Zealand’s contributions to the Five Eyes partnership.

The first of the two dishes and radomes are expected to be removed next year but the GCSB will continue to operate out of Waihopai Station.

Murray Horton is a campaigner with the Anti-Bases Campaign that called for the closing of the GCSB stations at Waihopai and Tangimoana and he has been attending annual protests outside Waihopai since the station became operational in 1988.  He spoke to Justin Wong.

On Tuesday, a study conducted by the Victoria University of Wellington showed how coastal risks could be reduced now instead of waiting for legislation. The report comes timely with the COP26 conference in Glasgow, as world leaders discuss how they can reach global emission reduction targets. Author of the study, Dr Judy Lawrence, says her research analyses the difficulties of planning for the on-going sea level rise under a planning regime which is largely permissive and enables land-uses with very long timeframes. Joe speaks to Dr Judy Lawrence on the matter.