The Wire with Alex

Last week, the Education and Workforce select committee released its final report on an inquiry into social media's harm on young people. The report included 12 recommendations to the government on action to take which would protect tamariki online.

These recommendations included a social media ban for under 16s, establishing an independent national regulator for online safety and addressing legislative gaps to increase companies' liability for harm. Some MPs have disagreed with the report’s findings however, with the ACT party calling for a patient, rather than fast changing, approach to online restrictions.

To discuss the findings of the report and how the government should address online protection Producer Thomas spoke to Tāhono Trust member Anjum Rahmen.

Late last year, the High Court ruled against the Ministry of Social Development on one of their practices in recovering welfare payments. MSD had, for the last twenty years, required that successful ACC claimants pay back any supplementary assistance they had received while waiting for their claim to be resolved, such as through the accommodation supplement. 

This approach would often mean claimants would be left with a significantly reduced payout, and even debt.

Last month, the government began passing legislation that would retroactively make these practices legal, slashing any hopes of forgiving the outstanding debts that were - until recently - unlawful.

The Social Security (Accident Compensation and Calculation of Weekly Income) Amendment Bill has been pushed through parliament in urgency, limiting scrutiny. However, despite a narrow timeframe to submit on the select committee, over eight hundred responses were received.

Producer Theo spoke to Dr Susan St John, Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Auckland - and one of the submitters to the bill’s select committee - about the consequences this legislation will have.

The New Zealand Government is currently in talks with officials from the United States (US) about a new border security agreement that would allow New Zealanders' biometric information to be handed over to the US government. 

The new agreement could give the United States full automated access to New Zealand's national databases.

Wire Host Caeden spoke to the chair of the New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties, Thomas Beagle, about this issue.

This week on the Wednesday Wire...

For our weekly catchup w/ the Green Party, Manny spoke with MP Ricardo Menéndez March about the war in Iran and Pay equity.

We then spoke to Professor Felicity Goodyear-Smith from the Department of General Practice and Primary Healthcare, about the crisis in primary care and what can be done to support GP’s.

And after that, we’ll share with you part of a series of interviews we did with festival organisers looking to understand why so many were struggling at this current time and how the government overlooked these grassroots local event organisers.