The Wire with Caeden

E Whai Ake Nei, coming up on The Wire...

Tuva’a spoke with defence minister Andrew Little for 2023, where they talked about the continued impact of the cyclone and the government's response
Liam had a chat with Catherine Healey from the New Zealand Sex Workers Collective and Jan Logie from the Green Party of Aotearoa about the recent Calendar Girls rights protests in Poneke.
They also spoke to UoA professor Robert MacCulloch about the Official Cash Rate Hike, 
Hanna spoke to Dr Kevin Trenberth about the government's plan to tax methane emissions
And lastly Liam spoke to Cameron Adams for Eurovision, nearly one year on from the day Russia's invasion of Ukraine began. 

Dancers at the Calender Girls Club in Pōneke Wellington protested their unjust firing in the capital last week. 

After a 2023 contract change, a joint letter saw a group of the workers call for better rights and pay as independent contractors, allowing them to receive clear income records and 60%  

This led to them being fired via a facebook post, invigorating conversations about sex worker rights in Aotearoa over all. 

Fired Up Stilettos, the group behind the protest, provided 95bFM with the following statement:

“We want industry wide changes for all dancers across New Zealand. We want all adult entertainment venues to be compelled to cease all practices which violate our independent contractor status. Remove all fines and bonds from our contracts.

 We also require a limit on what these venues can take from our earnings as contractors. We believe that progress in our industry for workers rights is lagging behind severely because of the structural, social, and political stigma that has been  attached to our occupation in the past. 

Club owners in New Zealand use  this stigma to their advantage,  and are able to exploit our workers because we  have not had  any support. We need public and political support to be able to stop this from happening. Getting fired for standing up for yourself or your rights is systemic to our industry. Our mission is to end this cycle of rights violations, coercion and exploitation. It has to end.”

To learn more about the wider issues of sex worker rights in New Zealand, Liam spoke to Catherine Healey from the New Zealand Sex Workers Collective. 

Present at the protests was Greens spokesperson for women and list MP, Jan Logie. 

Logie will be speaking to fired up stilettos next month, discussing their demands and how they want to be supported politically. 

Liam also spoke to Logie about the protests.

On The Wire for Rāapa Wednesday, News & Editorial Director Jessica Hopkins speaks to Sophora from Fridays for Future Tāmaki Makaurau about a youth-led global climate strike happening on 3 March. 

For their regular catch up, the ACT Party’s Karen Chhour discusses the government’s initial cyclone emergency support and calls to make gender-affirming healthcare more accessible for Irawhiti and transgender people.

And Producer Troy Matich interviews Maggie Shui, and Eleanor about the new Re: docuseries, Dating While Asian.

This week, on Casper's final Tuesday Wire show, Joel Rindelaub chatted about animals that do drugs for Dear Science. Casper talked to National’s Shane Reti about infrastructure resilience and Gary Taylor from the Environmental Defence Society about managed retreat.

Milly spoke with Toby Williams from the Federated Farmers regarding the issue of forestry slash. She also talked to Tony Mitchell from Bike Auckland about Auckland cycleway plans.