The Wire with Caeden

The United Nations recently received permission from Israel for 100 more emergency aid trucks to enter Gaza, after International humanitarian experts warned of looming famine due to Israel’s renewed blockade of the strip since March.

On Monday this week, Israel cleared nine trucks of goods to enter Gaza, however, only five of those trucks actually entered Gaza and haven’t distributed their aid yet.

However, even if all nine of those trucks were to enter Gaza, that still wouldn’t be nearly enough to attend to the needs of the strip’s 2.1 million population, 47% of whom are children under the age of 18.

Oto spoke to Maher Nazzal from the Palestinian Forum of New Zealand about why the clearance of aid trucks into Gaza isn’t enough, and the additional steps that the New Zealand government could take to put pressure on Israel.

Disclaimer: As of the 21st of May, 2025, Israel claims that 93 trucks had entered into the Gaza Strip, however, aid is yet to be delivered.

Last week, UNICEF published their latest child wellbeing report, comparing childhood experiences, child poverty rates and mental wellbeing in OECD countries.

In the report, Aotearoa New Zealand was ranked 32 out of 36 OECD countries for child wellbeing and at the very bottom of this list for child mental health.

The report also showed that New Zealand had the highest suicide rate amongst rangatahi in the developed world and the second highest rate of children experiencing bullying.

Chief Children’s Commissioner Dr Claire Achmad, said that the findings in the report were unacceptable, that they were attributed to the ongoing issue of child poverty in New Zealand and called on the government to act immediately to combat child poverty and invest in mental health services for tamariki and rangatahi.

Wednesday Wire Host, Oto, spoke to Achmad about this.

Just under two weeks ago the government passed the pay equity amendment bill under urgency. This bill would change existing pay equity legislation to make it more restrictive, which the government says will save billions of dollars. 

The process was originally introduced to address issues of pay inequity between sectors. While the Equal Pay Act mandates that people working the same job are paid the same regardless of gender, Pay Equity is meant to ensure industries dominated by women are not paid less than similar industries dominated by men. The process has worked by allowing applicants to compare their positions with positions in other sectors with similar workloads, skills, or experience. 

The government’s changes will limit the criteria for comparators, allow only industries with over 70% women in the workforce as opposed to the previous 60%, and removing the ability for the authority to award back pay, among other changes. 

These changes have been met with criticism from rights organisations, advocacy groups, and opposition parties. In our weekly catchup with National’s Tom Rutherford, Wire host Castor asked about the government’s reasoning behind the Pay Equity Amendment Bill. 

This week on the Tuesday Wire...

For Dear Science, our expert, Professor Allan Blackman chats with us about personalised gene therapy treatment, using molecules to crack passcodes, and Olympic pool bombing. 

In our weekly catchup with the National Party’s Tom Rutherford, Wire host Castor asked about Pay Equity in light of the government’s recent changes. 

They also spoke to Professor Terryann Clark from the University of Auckland about social media use among young people. 

Producer Faith spoke to the Dr Chanelle Duley, an economics lecturer at the university of Auckland, about how financial technology can be used for good, and what we need to be cautious of.

She also spoke to Professor Frederique Vanholsbeeck from the university’s physics department about deep tech, and how NZ can better utilise it.