The Wire with Caeden

New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union members are taking industrial action in response to unsuccessful long-term negotiation with Fire and Emergency NZ.

The Union is concerned about ongoing staff shortages, low pay and a lack of early identification of those who experience trauma on the job, and staged a strike on Friday with more planned for this week.

To get a better sense of what’s driving these concerns, and how they might be addressed, Casper spoke to the President of the Auckland Branch of the Professional Firefighters Union, Terry Bird.

The National Party has been claiming that the workforce shortages New Zealand is seeing is a result of mismanaged immigration policy.

This week, to address the workforce shortages, the government announced that skilled migrant workers will be able to be payed under the median wage, as well as a doubling of the working holiday scheme cap and an extension to currently held working holiday visas.

For Casper's weekly catchup with National MP Dr. Shane Reti, he asked him to explain what he thinks needs to happen regarding immigration policy, as well as how he views this latest announcement.

Amnesty International Aotearoa New Zealand is calling on the New Zealand Government to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to at least 14 years old. This is one of the many changes needed to improve Aotearoa New Zealand’s youth justice system.

Lisa Woods, Campaigns Director for Amnesty International Aotearoa New Zealand, mentions, "When a child does something seriously wrong, it is often because they have been seriously let down by society. What we then risk is using the criminal justice system to respond to issues caused by, for example, trauma and a lack of health and mental health support. This means that instead of solving problems caused by a lack of resources and services, our current laws are funnelling children into a system that can trap them for the rest of their lives. This does irrevocable damage to the child, their whānau, and to the rest of society."

Joe spoke to Lisa Woods on the matter

The MBIE has granted $1.1 million in funding to University of Canterbury researchers to develop a hyper-realistic virtual therapy avatar to help high-functioning people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to better recognise emotions and reduce ‘social blindness’.

University of Canterbury Engineering researchers Distinguished Professor Geoff Chase and Lecturer Dr Lui Holder-Pearson have been awarded $1.1 million in funding through a partnership between MBIE and Soul Machines, an AI company in Auckland.

Their project, titled ‘AI-driven Two-Way, Feedback Controlled Emotional Recognition Training for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder’ combines three key elements:                

Hyper-realistic and responsive avatars from Soul Machines Digital DNA Studio able to show detailed emotions           

Computer vision to read subject emotional state, reaction rates in integrated tasks, stress levels (via heartrate, etc.), focus, and attention, incorporating critical subject feedback

Programmed standard, accepted therapeutic methods (behind the avatar) to respond to measured subject behaviour/actions

These technologies enable a virtualised true two-way therapeutic session, where current emotion recognition software has no subject feedback (is only one-way).

Trishil spoke to Professor Geoff Chase about his research and it’s potential.