The Wire with Alex

Food poverty & child malnutrition is a problematic issue facing Aotearoa, with more than one hundred & sixty thousand Kiwi kids not getting enough adequate food. The ministry of health recently published a report, the household food insecurities among New Zealand child health survey, which found that children in food-insecure households had poorer parent-rated health status, poorer nutrition, as well as reported higher rates of psychological and parenting stress, as well as poorer self-rated health status. Now the strain seems to be on those families living on a low-income budget, where a low-wage economy, alongside very low levels of welfare support, is fuelling this crisis of food poverty. So what is going to be done about this by the Ministry of Health? Louis caught up Dr Sarah Gerritsen of the University of Auckland's faculty of medical & health sciences, who spoke to me on the prevalence of food poverty’s impact, on families in Aotearoa.

Stewart's back and this week he's joined by Producer Bronnie in the bFM studio. 

This week on the show:

• Dr Bill O’Connor from the NZ Dental Association talks to Stewart Sowman-Lund about our quite shocking rates of child oral health problems.
• Then, Bronnie talks to Letitia O’Dwyer of the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation NZ about her views on the government’s “Vaping facts” website.
• After that, Professor Jon Waters from the University of Otago tells Bronnie about how by using sea kelp, he hopes to identify locations at risk of earthquakes.  
• Finally - Neighbourhood Watch is back for another week… Our correspondent Zoe catches Stewart up on all the latest Aussie news.

All that plus a flood of listener texts on vaping and fluoride. It's The Thursday Wire! 

Bronwyn speaks to Letitia O'Dwyer about the government's new "Vaping Facts" website and her concerns about its representation of the risks of vaping. 

The organisations of Shakti, the Khadija Leadership Network and Auckland Peace Action have come together to host Let’s Deal With It: A Trans-Tasman Conference Towards Racial Equity. The beginnings of this event came out of the terror attacks in Christchurch. The groups say they want to create a safe platform to establish an open dialogue between Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand to help build a society free of prejudice, racism and hate-based crime. The one-day conference focuses on 'creating awareness of the democratic and political processes, promoting active citizenship, encouraging active citizenship within the context of multicultural dialogue and promoting the self-development of refugee and migrant communities'. Tayyaba Khan is from the Khadija Leadership Network, and Arisha Chandra and Mengzhu Fu are both from Shakti. They are all involved in planning the conference and they joined Lillian Hanly this morning to speak more about what they hope to come of it. Lillian started by asking how the conference came about.

The event is on this Friday the 14th, at the Mt Eden War Memorial Hall from 8-5pm. If you can't make it, it will be livestreamed, so you can find that on the Shakti, Auckland Peace Action and Khadija Leadership Network social media. The panels will also be filmed and available online, you can also get involved in the conversation online if you can’t be there in person.