The Wire with Caeden

For our weekly catch-up with the Labour Party, Wire host Caeden spoke to Labour’s Carmel Sepuloni about Destiny Church’s Pride Protests and the new tourism ad campaign.

For International Desk, they spoke to AUT Senior Law Lecturer Sione Tekiteki about the controversial Cook Islands/China agreement. 

And they spoke to University of Auckland Commercial Law Professor Alex Sims about the Right of Repair Bill that passed its first reading in Parliament yesterday.

For City Counselling this week, producer Sofia caught up with Councillor Shane Henderson about Auckland Council’s submission on the Treaty Principles Bill and the Destiny Church protests at pride events over the weekend.

In December last year, the government introduced the stalking and harassment amendment bill, the first official legislation in Aotearoa to criminalise stalking.

Calls for an official stalking bill became widespread in Aotearoa, following the murder of 21-year old Farzana Yaqubi, who’s calls to the police leading up to her murder were effectively ignored as stalking was not yet a crime at the time.

However, Carrie Leonetti - an associate professor in Law at the University of Auckland who helped create the original draft legislation, said that the new stalking and harassment bill was too weak to actually protect victims of stalking and that the number of acts that constitute as stalking in the bill didn’t cover the full range of potential offenses.

Oto spoke to Carrie about why the new Stalking bill was ineffective and what was needed to improve it.

For their weekly catch up with the Green Party, Oto spoke to Ricardo Menendez March about the government’s recent tourism and biodiversity fund, as well as Destiny Church’s protests at recent pride events and the deportation notice given to 18-year-old Daman Kumar.

For this week’s Get Action! Oto spoke to Vanessa Cole from public housing futures to discuss a campaign of hers calling for the government to construct more public housing for people on the “true waitlist”.

And he spoke to Carrie Leonetti - an associate professor in Law at the University of Auckland at the University of Auckland, to discuss the government’s new anti-stalking legislation, and why it falls short of protecting stalking victims.

Sasha spoke to Dr Chanelle Duley, a lecturer in Business at the University of Auckland, about the introduction of a new bill that will aim at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses.

Amani spoke to University of Auckland’s School of Population Health and spokesperson for Health Coalition Aotearoa, Dr. Kelly Garton, on why we should give kids a break from junk food ads.

She also spoke to Professor at Lincoln University’s Department of Soil & Physical Sciences and Co-Director of Bioprotection Aotearoa, Amanda Black, on how the use of pesticides is worsening the “biodiversity crisis.”

Over the weekend, an estimated 50 protesters, a part of Destiny Church-linked groups, stormed the Te Atatū Community Centre and library, where a show discussing the science of rainbows was being performed to children by a drag king as a part of Auckland Pride festivities.

This received mass condemnation, over the the protest not being peaceful, as protestors tried to force their way to the library section of the community centre, resulting in not only 30 young children and adults having to be barricaded away for their safety, but also resulted in a 16-year old and her 20-year old sister sustaining injuries while defending against those rallying.

For our weekly catchup with the National Party’s Tom Rutherford, News and Editorial Director, Joel, spoke to him about this event, what the parties stances are on it, and the petition to have Destiny Church’s charitable status revoked, which has received over 72,000 signatures.

They also spoke to him about the resignation of Director-General of Health, Dr Diana Sarfati, as well as Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, and Tourism Minister, Louise Upston’s $500,000 campaign enticing Australians tourists to New Zealand.

But first, they started off by asking him about how the party reacted to the Te Atatū Community Centre and Library protests.