The Wire with Caeden

Around mid-August this year, senior management at the University of Auckland made an announcement saying that they were looking to cut a number of small postgraduate and undergraduate courses in the Faculty of Arts with less than 60 and 30 students respectively. 

The University said that the cuts were being proposed to “optimise” course offerings and address classroom spacing issues. They also said that the cuts came about as a result of a routine review of courses regularly conducted by the University.

The announcement resulted in widespread outcry and condemnation by the University of Auckland’s senior academics and lecturers, saying that the University gave them a limited timeframe to review and contest the changes, and the decision to cut courses such as Huarahi Māori will have an impact on marginalised communities.

Oto spoke to Nicole Wallace, an organiser at the Tertiary Education Union who works with lecturers at the University of Auckland to discuss the course cut proposal and its implications for senior academics and lecturers.

For our weekly catch-up with the Labour Party, Wire Host Caeden speaks to Labour’s Ginny Anderson about retail crime in the CBD, banning gang patches, and the Minister for Firearms not ruling out bringing back high-powered semi-automatic firearms. 

For States of the States this week they speak to Yale Daily News’ Andre Fa’aoso about the situation in Springfield, Ohio after several weeks of Republican-led anti-immigrant rhetoric and the second assassination attempt against former president and Republican candidate Donald Trump.

And they speak to University of Otago Senior Lecturer Leon Goldsmith about the device explosions in Lebanon that have killed at least twenty-six people and injured thousands more. 

For City Counselling this week, Sofia speaks to Councillor Shane Henderson about Mayor Wayne Brown’s proposal for a second harbour bridge from Point Chevalier to the North Shore as well as Council spending over 250K on beach stairs on Milford Beach.

She also speaks to Professor of Law at the University of Waikato, Leilani Tuala-Warren, about a recent proposal by Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa to recognise ecocide as a crime against humanity and whether Aotearoa should support the proposal.

The government recently announced a number of amendments to the employment relations act which would clarify whether a worker was legally considered to be an employee or a contractor. 

The amendments included a test with four added criteria, such as a written agreement with the worker specifying they were an independent contractor and that the business did not restrict the worker from working for other businesses and requiring them to take on additional tasks and engagements among other criteria.

If a worker met all of the criteria specified in the act, they would be considered as a contractor and wouldn’t be able to challenge their employment status through the courts. 

While Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden said that the changes would provide greater certainty for contractors and businesses, union members and labour rights advocates have criticised the move, saying that it would allow companies to strip away the rights of workers to boost profit margins.

For their weekly catchup, Oto spoke to the Green Party’s Ricardo Menendez-March to discuss the recent changes to the Employment Relations Act and the party’s take on it.

They also had a korero about the Waitangi tribunal’s findings into the recent changes to the Marine and Coastal Areas act, as well as the recently released draft list of 35 minerals considered essential to New Zealand’s economy.

For our regular catch-up, Oto spoke to the Green Party’s Ricardo Menéndez-March about the government’s recently proposed changes to the Employment relations act, the Waitangi Tribunal’s findings regarding the marine and coastal area act and the release of a draft list of 35 minerals considered essential to New Zealand’s economy.

He spoke to Marama Muru-Lanning from the University of Auckland, to discuss the idea of establishing Maori-led hospitals.

And he spoke to Robert G. Patman from the University of Otago to discuss New Zealand’s ambiguous stance on the war in Gaza, and the steps we should take to clarify our position.

Sasha spoke to Associate Professor Mark Thomas of Molecular Medicine and Pathology from the University of Auckland about the emerging MPOX vaccine.

He also spoke to associate professor Laslzo Sajtos at the University of Business School about the recent implementation of facial recognition technology in Woolworths stores.