The Wire with Caeden

Today on the Friday Wire:

Liam spoke to Pippa Coom on their regular City Counselling Segment, chatting about her final report of this council term and the upcoming local elections. 

David spoke to Rebekah Graham from Parents of Vision Impaired about food insecurity amongst some of our country’s poorest people.

Liam also had a chat with Steve Thomas from Arts on Tour about arts funding in Aotearoa New Zealand.

David talked to Corrine Sales from Victoria University of Wellington about the Ukrainian language.

And finally Liam had a chat with the University of Canterbury’s Michelle LaRue about her research using satellites to understand wendell seal populations.

Alzheimers NZ is appalled that as many as 30,000 New Zealanders with dementia and around as many care partners can’t get the post-diagnostic community support they need. The latest World Alzheimer Report, which was released last night, by Alzheimer’s Disease International, says the lack of post-diagnostic care for people living with dementia is a global problem.

Joe spoke to Alzheimer NZ Chief Executive Catherine Hall on the matter.

This week on Dear Science, Dr Joel Rindelaub from UoA dropped into the studio to chat about the weird and wacky world of science. On this episode, Joel, Casper and Christina had a yarn about ants and the Cheerio effect, listening to music to test cognitive decline and the prevalence of microplastics all throughout the food chain. Listen back!

Voting for this year’s local body elections has begun, which is bringing increasing scrutiny to the issue of voter engagement.

Particularly for young people, Maori and Pasifika, but also for the general population, voter participation in local elections is relatively low and on the decline.

In regards to next year’s national election, the Independant Electoral Review Panel has begun seeking public input on potential changes to the electoral system that could benefit New Zealand’s democracy.

For Casper's weekly catch-up with National MP Dr Shane Reti, they discussed this topic of voter engagement as well as what might be expected from this electoral review and which changes he might believe to be useful.