The Wire with Caeden

On Dear Science today we talk about the end of the Opportunity Rover on Mars, push ups and heart disease, and the best order to drink wine and beer together as well as a profile of the element Americium from the Periodic Table.

Fletcher Tabuteau is with us this week and Lillian Hanly spoke with him about the Digital Services Tax and the possible shift away from the use of 1080.

Finally, Lillian has something special in store for Wednesday listeners over the next month or so, and that is A Seven Part Chat with Rod Oram. This will be explained later in the show but basically there were some articles around the possibility of another global financial crisis and Lillian wanted to know more about that, and whether we should be keeping money out of the bank... 

Heaps of great interaction from listeners today too with lots of good points about alcohol poisoning and tax and fairness.

Governments all over the world are paying more and more attention to the financial activities of digital giants such as Google, Facebook and Uber. And New Zealand isn’t being left out of the picture - our government has just announced plans to impose a new digital services tax on multinational corporations operating in New Zealand. Finance Minister Grant Robertson sez highly digitalised companies currently earn a significant income from New Zealand consumers without being liable for income tax. He adds the current tax rules also provide a competitive advantage to foreign companies in the digital services field compared to local companies offering similar online services. So will this proposed digital tax affect the operating activities of these online global giants in New Zealand? Olivia Holdsworth spoke to economic and political journalist Rod Oram about the new tax. Olivia also asked him about his thoughts on the upcoming tax working group report and specifically the capital gains tax which would see profits from the sale of assets and investments such as rental properties and shares being taxed at people's marginal income tax rate. Olivia began by asking how the digital services tax will affect multinational corporations.

Why is everyone panicking about the China / New Zealand alleged worsening relationship?

Our producer Lisa Boudet (briefly) reports. 

Stuff recently released an article warning of sex-for-rent advertisments appearing on Craigslist for rooms in New Zealand cities. The article talks about how sex-for-rent arrangements pose a serious risk to women. Jemima speaks to Dame Catherine Healy, the National Coordinator for the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective, about sex-for-rent arrangements and whether they are safe.