The Wire with Max

With 2025 coming to a close, it’s a turning point for health promotion strategies around nicotine and tobacco use in Aotearoa. The Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 initiative launched in 2010, and sought to focus on addressing inequities for Māori. The parameters for success for Smokefree Aotearoa aimed for a reduction to less than 5% of NZers that smoke, across all population groups, by the end of the fifteen year period.

Producer Jasmine Gray spoke to Professor Chris Bullen, Co-Chair of the Smokefree Expert Advisory Committee, about the changes in smoking culture that have occurred across the campaign, and what is next for addressing inequities in tobacco use and relevant health outcomes going forward.

Last week was scrutiny week, where Parliament focuses entirely on holding government agencies and ministers to account, to check-in on how well the Government is performing.

Many of the questions surrounding scrutiny week have been focused on climate change, with many recent reports highlighting the Government’s questionable decision-making.. The biggest headline was that the coalition had chosen to reject all three of the climate change commission’s recommendations to strengthen New Zealand’s emissions targets.

Along with this, the United Nations released a new report, where they’ve warned that New Zealand is at serious risk of weakening Māori rights and entrenching disparities for the indigenous population. In the 14-page report, the UN expressed concerns over multiple government policies affecting Maori, including the disestablishment of the Maori Health Authority, cuts to public funding for Maori services, and minimising the role of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

For our weekly catchup with the Green Party, Wednesday Wire Host Max spoke to MP Ricardo Menendez March about the report released by the United Nations, but first they discussed Scrutiny Week and the Government’s recent climate change decisions.

A new study from the University of Auckland has indicated a higher risk of violence and discrimination for queer people on public transport, especially for non-binary and transgender people or those with multiple marginalised identities. 

Kirsten Tilleman, PhD researcher at Waimata Taupapa Rau University of Auckland conducted the study and is working with Auckland Transport to address the issue. To further explain the results of the study and to describe the implementation of possible solutions, Wire producer Flo spoke with Kirsten Tilleman.

We might think of statehood as a fairly recent, post- World War Two phenomenon, but the creation of states actually goes back to 5000 years ago. 

And instead of money, it was the taxation of grains that contributed to the creation of the first states. 

Producer Vihan spoke to the University of Auckland’s Professor of Psychology Quentin Atkinson on how the first states and their elites came to be.