The Wire with Caeden

Last week, the government revealed statistics showing a drop in crime in Auckland’s CBD, the reduction accredited to increased police presence under this government. 

Crime isn’t the only issue facing the CBD, with recent data showing that hospitality spending in Auckland’s CBD is down compared to previous years. Challenges faced by hospitality businesses have been particularly evident since COVID lockdowns, with some heritage businesses permanently closing in recent months. 

The government has also been tabling discussions of increasing the parliamentary term from three to four years. While several previous governments have discussed such a change, some issues have prevented it from going ahead. 

In our weekly catchup with the National Party’s Katie Nimon, Wire host Castor asked her about these issues facing the CBD, and about the potential for a four-year parliamentary term, starting off with crime in the CBD. 

Last week, thousands of explosions erupted in Lebanon, both the capital of Beirut and other parts of the country. 

This was due to a coordinated attack caused by explosives that were planted in a number of pagers and walkie-talkie devices used by members of the Lebanese group Hezbollah, that Israeli Intelligence is confirmed to be responsible for.  

The attack resulted in thousands of people being injured, many of whom were civilian bystanders, and 32 people being killed, with two of the casualties being children.

Oto spoke to John Minto from Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa, to discuss his reaction to the pager attack in Lebanon and how this could lead to a wider conflict in the Middle-East. 

They also talked about New Zealand’s vote in favour for the UN resolution demanding an end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.

For their weekly catch up with Te Pāti Māori, Oto spoke to Mariameno Kapa-Kingi about Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori last week, Gang patch legislation passing into law, and New Zealand supporting a UN resolution, calling for an end of Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

He spoke to Nicole Wallace from the Tertiary Education Union to discuss a recent series of proposed cuts to short postgraduate courses at the University of Auckland.

And he spoke to John Minto from Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa to discuss Israel’s exploding pager attack in Lebanon last week, as well as New Zealand voting in favour of the UN General assembly resolution demanding an end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.

For their weekly catch up, Evie spoke to the ACT Party’s Simon Court about restricting contract workers from challenging their employment status, and the ban on gang patches passing into law. 

She also spoke to E Tū National Secretary Rachel Mackintosh about the same planned changes to the contractor employment law, why the Union opposes these, and what negative impact she believes it will have.

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.