The Wire with Alex

For our weekly catch-up with the Labour Party, Wire Host Caeden spoke to MP Shanan Halbert about Labour’s portfolio reshuffle ahead of the election, phase two of the Royal Commission Inquiry into Covid-19, and the results of the select committee inquiry into social media harm and young people. 

For International Desk this week, they spoke to Deakin University Research Fellow Dr Ali Mamouri about rising islamophobia in Australian politics. 

For City Counselling this week, News Director Castor spoke to Councillor Shane Henderson about March Madness and changes to PC 120. 

And Producer Pranuja spoke with Dr Kelly Garton from the University of Auckland on her recent article comparing New Zealand's Healthy School Lunches Programme to Brazil’s. We discussed the budget cuts to New Zealand's lunch programme and what we could learn from Brazil’s long-running national free school meal scheme.

Last year, the govenment announced siginificant budget cuts to the school lunch programme formerly known as Ka Ora, Ka Ako, reducing the funding available per meal and reshaping how the programme is delivered in schools. Now, New Zealand's Healthy School Lunch Programme covers only a quarter of schools based on the Equity Index, reaching about 240,000 students, so more than half of children experiencing food insecurity do not attend school that recieve the programme. 

New research by Dr Kelly Garton, a research fellow in the School of Population Health at the University of Auckland, and a spokesperson for Health Coalition Aotearoa, compares New Zealand’s programme with Brazil’s national school meal system, which has been running for over 70 years and is considered a global gold standard.

Producer Pranuja spoke with Dr Garton about what New Zealand could learn from Brazil’s approach to school meals, and what a stronger programme here might look like.

In the past couple of months, the United States military has successfully decapitated two foreign regimes, capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Military action in Iran is still underway, but the Trump administration already appears to be eyeing up its next target: Cuba. Trump recently said that regime change in Cuba is now “just a question of time,” and that it may or may not be “a friendly takeover.”

Producer Toby spoke to Dr. Paul Taillon about the prospect of regime change in Iran and Cuba. They discussed the history of American involvement in these countries and the differences between what Trump is currently doing and previous attempts at regime change

The Covid 19 Pandemic saw wide-reaching policy interventions to save lives, keeping our hospital open and emergency beds available. Over the course of lockdowns, traffic lights, vaccines and mandates, the government at the time found that increasingly vocal opposition grew in response to their efforts. 

This opposition grew into a severe division that marked that period of time can be seen to this day. 

The groups protesting the pandemic control measures often viewed these restrictions as conspiratorial threats or vast overreach that infringed their rights, while supporters of the governments actions saw them as neccessary steps to save lives.

Following an inquiry into our pandemic response done by the Labour government that found appropriate actions were taking and no wrongdoing, momentum grew in certain minor parties for another look. 

This week, we saw the release of this with the release of a second inquiry.

To get her perspective on the second inquiry, Wire host Manny spoke to Associate Professor at the University of Auckland, Doctor Siouxsie Wiles, about the Covid 19 inquiry and her takeaways on social trust and cohesion.