The Wire with Castor

Last week it was revealed that the government had withdrawn New Zealand from the Beyond Oil and Gas alliance, an international coalition dedicated to phasing out the use of fossil fuels.

This was confirmed by climate change minister Simon Watts, who said that the exit from the alliance was prompted by the government’s repeal of the oil and gas exploration ban.

In that same week, Immigration minister Erica Stanford recently announced that the government was looking to electronically monitor some asylum seekers and migrants, in preparation for mass arrivals of asylum seekers by plane.

And, just recently, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith introduced a number of sentencing reforms that included capping the discounts judges can give to offenders and treating one-punch attacks as separate offenses.

For our weekly catchup with the Green Party, Oto spoke with MP Ricardo Menendez March to get the party’s take on all of these issue.

As of the 1st of July 2025, the Healthy Homes standards have kicked in. This requires all rental properties to meet the regulations, designed to improve renters’ health, by preventing damp, mouldy and cold conditions.

Now that the final deadline has passed, landlords who fail to comply with the standards could face fines of up to $7200. The only problem is who might be regulating them…

To break down what this means for renters, landlords and the wider housing sector, Producer Max spoke to Bill McKay, from the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Auckland.

This week on the Tuesday Wire:

For Dear Science this week, our expert, Professor Allan Blackman, chats  about the importance of uranium 235, thanks to MOTAT.

In our weekly catchup with the National Party’s Tom Rutherford, Tuesday Wire Host Castor asks about New Zealand’s exit from the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, and new systems in place for ADHD diagnosis.

News and Editorial Director, Joel, speaks to Make It 16 member, and Youth MP for Ilam, Sam Allan, about a majority of Youth MPs backing calls to lower the voting age in both local and general elections.

And Joel speaks to the Northland Regional Manager for Forest and Bird, Dean Baigent-Mercer, about a recently conducted NIWA-led study that shows Aotearoa’s native forests are absorbing substantially more carbon dioxide than previously thought.

Whakarongo mai!

Recently, Meta, the company that owns Facebook, has won a copyright case against 13 authors over the unlicensed use of their work to train Meta’s Llama AI models.

The case, referred to as Kadrey v. Meta, resulting in US District Court judge Vince Chhabria, ruling that Meta did not violate copyright law.

As this case is a first of it’s kind as AI becomes more prominent across the globe, this has raised the question of the grey area between copyright infringements and the use of AI.

News and Editorial Director and Monday Wire Host, Joel, spoke to Joshua Yuvaraj, a Senior Law Lecturer at the University of Auckland, about this case, and what this ruling means for the future copyright claims not only internationally, but also here in Aotearoa as well.