The Wire with Sara

After 8 years of negotiations New Zealand has finally signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP trade deal, with the Association of South East Asian Nations, plus China, Japan, Australia and South Korea.

Some things to note are:

• The RCEP was signed with 15 Asia and Pacific nations, almost a third of the worlds population.
• This was negotiated behind closed doors, which means New Zealanders didn't know what was being agreed on until it was already signed and didn't get the opportunity to have much of a say. This is the same problem that many kiwis had with the TPPA trade agreement.
• India is not part of the deal, they pulled out. If they were it would be very economically positive for New Zealand. But the rest of the countries we already have Free Trade Ageements with, so many are asking what the point of signing onto something that could restrict us, when we might only get 0.3% increase of GDP out of it. 

Ayana spoke with Minister for Trade and Export Growth Damien O'Connor and It's Our Future Spokesperson Edward Miller about the impact of the trade deal on New Zealand. 

With COVID still here and Christmas quickly approaching while cases continue to rise across the globe, the government announced this morning a new order that will be put in place. This order is in relation to border testing, where a number of changes will take place. They are:

·        Increasing the frequency of testing for ship pilots and some other port workers who carry out work on affected ships, from fortnightly to weekly,

·        Increasing testing frequency for some workers who carry out work on aircraft that have arrived from outside of New Zealand, from fortnightly to weekly.

·        Mandatory fortnightly testing for port workers not already covered,

·        Mandatory fortnightly testing for airport airside and landside workers not already covered who interact with international arriving or transiting passengers

James spoke to minister in charge of the COVID-19 response, Chris Hipkins, about these changes, and started off by asking about the impact of testing weekly instead of fortnightly

On Dear Science with Marcus Jones we’re talking about covid vaccines, quantum computers and disappointment in the search for life on venus.

Today on the Wednesday Wire, Felix speaks to Marcus Jones on Dear Science about covid vaccines, quantum computers and disappointment in the search for life on venus.

Bronnie spoke to deputy leader of the Act party - Brooke Van Velden about the party’s criticisms of both the government’s response to COVID-19 and the housing crisis.

Felix reported on Facebook’s role in democracy and some of the controversies they’ve faced recently.

Karanama spoke to Nick Thomson, Director of Financial Capability for the Commission for Financial Capability, about the Sorted in Schools programme.