The Wire with Sara

University of Auckland’s student magazine Craccum is moving to establish independence from the Auckland University Student Association following recent proposals by the university to further cut the magazine’s funding.

Without consultation, Craccum’s budget was cut in 2025, forcing the magazine to reduce production from weekly issues to fortnightly, and occasionally even less, as well as cull their editorial team from 14 to 6 paid members, and rely on unpaid contributors for 90% of their content.

Ahead of 2026, the university is proposing a further decrease in budget of 22%, or $33,000, which would mean the removal of another six issues throughout the year.

The editorial team at Craccum are calling out to students to support them to revitalise the magazine and restore funding to the magazine which they say has been a ‘taonga’ at the university for just under 100 years

For Dear Science this week, our expert, Dr Cushla McGoverin talks to us about Inca record keeping, the regeneration of snail eyes, and imaging embryo implantation.

Thanks Cushla for joining us, thank you MOTAT, and thank you science!

A couple of weeks ago in our weekly catch-up with the ACT Party’s Simon Court, we discussed multiple countries moving to formally recognise Palestinian Statehood, and what New Zealand’s plans were in this regard.

Last week, Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, said the country would carefully weigh its position over the next month in recognising the state of Palestine.

During a debate in Parliament, the government’s delay in recognising a Palestinian state, as opposed to other countries such as France, the UK, Canada, and Australia, led Green Party co-leader, Chlöe Swarbrick, to refer to the country as “outlier,” and called for the government MPs “with a spine” to “stand on the right side of history”. This led to her being ordered to leave Parliament by Speaker Gerry Brownlee, after refusing to apologise for her statement.

As well as this, last week, Education Minister, Erica Stanford, announced cancelling the early-reading book At the Marae from its Ready to Read Phonics Plus series. 

The government’s reasoning for this is through “mixed” evidence suggesting that learning both English and te reo Māori for young learners could confuse them.

The move has been widely criticised by linguists, academics, and educators, for being “an act of racism” and “white supremacy”.

For our weekly catch-up with the ACT Party’s Simon Court, Producer Castor spoke to Simon about both these topics, starting with recognising a Palestinian state.

Find out more about the Māori words which are a part of the official Oxford English Dictionary here

Last week, the Palestinian Solidarity Network Aotearoa published the results of a survey poll showing public support for sanctions on Israel. The PSNA have backed the results as proof that popular opinion in Aotearoa is against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Further, PSNA claims that by doing nothing, the Government and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters are falling out of alignment with the public on the issue, and demands action from the Government.

Producer Alex spoke to Palestinian Solidarity Network Aotearoa Co-Chair John Minto about the results of the survey, what they mean, and what PSNA want to see from the Government.