The Wire with Alex

Lachlan spoke with Ross Bell from the New Zealand Drug Foundation about Labour's promised referendum on the legalisation of cannabis and drug policy in Aotearoa more generally.

Tina Ngata of Ngati Porou is an indigenous and environmental rights advocate. Recently she posted an open letter to Jason Momoa regarding his apology for the joke about rape he made at a Game of Thrones press event in light of the MeToo campaign. Ngata welcomes his apology, but critiques they way statements like these attempt to shut a conversation down, and the way others continue to shut the conversation down once people have apologised instead of continuing to the point where these issues are put on the table and people are made uncomfortable and held accountable for these issues. So Lillian Hanly and Tina had a conversation about it. They also bring the discussions back home to discuss Once Were Warriors and the new film in cinemas called Waru that deals with child abuse.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has seen more than 3 million people displaced from their home amidst growing violence in Kasai Province.

The UN High Commissioner For Refugees said that over 400,000 have been displaced in the last three months alone and that the unrest and violence caused by the ongoing ethno-political conflict could cause that number to rise dramatically.

bFM's Conor Knell spoke to Robert Patman about the crisis.

On today's wire, we look at the situation around the imminent closure of Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island detention centre.

Labour has planned to scrap National Standards for primary schools — we speak to National MP Nikki Kaye about her criticisms of the policy

We speak to a criminologist about research into the ways newspaper reporting of sexual violence can work to uphold rape culture.

Finally, we speak to Nicole Whippy about The Mountaintop, a play which imagines how Martin Luther King’s last night could have played out