The Wire with Caeden

Strike action by more than 290 NZ Blood Service Workers across the motu begins tomorrow. The decision follows seven months of stalled negotiations in pursuit of funding that seeks to rectify the 13-35% pay gap between NZ Blood Service Workers and their colleagues of the same job roles, skills, experience at Te Whatu Ora. Representatives of strike action have affirmed the support of the executive team at NZ Blood during this process, and have emphasised that frustrations lie around the unnecessary and harmful delays in securing the funding to solve the issue. Producer Jasmine Gray spoke to Public Service Association Delegate, Sian Dallaway, ahead of tomorrow’s strike. 

With an increase of 8.1% in the nation's unemployment rate, there are now at least 82,000 young New Zealanders, aged between 15 and 24 years, who are currently unemployed, not in education or in training. These individuals are grouped into a category known as NEETs.

The national unemployment rate is the highest it has been since the impact of COVID 19 in mid 2021 and it is expected to increase beyond 5% by next year. 

Rachel spoke to Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston about the current measures and future plans the government has to slow down the increasing rates of NEETs.

Health outcome gaps for Māori and Pasifika suffering from cardiovascular conditions have been apparent for quite some time.
In order to address this ongoing problem, a group of researchers involved in Manawataki Fatu Fatu for ACCESS conducted a qualitative study, where they interviewed Māori and Pasifika patients in cardiovascular care to uncover the causes behind these health gaps, as well as potential solutions. 

To discuss the study and its findings, Oto spoke to Senior Research fellow Karen Brewer from the University of Auckland, of Whakatōhea and Ngaiterangi descent, who conducted the study and had some insights to offer on Māori and Pasifika cardiovascular health gaps.

For Dear Science this week, Professor Allan Blackman chatted to us about reconstructing the genomes of extinct moa, a protein folding prediction programme, and a discovery forcing us to rewrite chemistry textbooks. 

Wire host Castor spoke to the National Party’s Katie Nimon about the Waikeria prison development and funding for corrections in advance of this week’s budget announcements. 

He also spoke to People Against Prisons’ Emmy Rākete about these developments and the government’s approach to crime more broadly. 

Producer Sofia spoke to Associate Professor of Medical Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland, David Menkes, about concerns over direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicine in Aotearoa. 

And Producer Ezra spoke to co-director of the New Zealand Centre for Human Rights Law Practice and Policy at the University of Auckland, Carrie Leonetti, about how Aotearoa needs to criminalise stalking.