The Wire with Oto

For our weekly catch up with the ACT Party's Simon Court, Producer Evie speaks to him about the proposed repeal of section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act.

She also speaks to Criminology Lecturer at the University of Auckland, Emmy Rākete (Ngāpuhi) about her concerns surrounding the repeal of Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki act, about the Ngāpuhi hīkoi taking place in opposition of the act.

She also spoke with Lecturer in Counselling, Human Services and Social Work at the University of Auckland Kendra Cox, about the government’s youth offender boot camps that kicked off last week, and her concerns on how this will affect rangatahi Māori and their mental health.

News and Editorial Director and Wire Host, Joel, spoke to Palestine Solidarity Network Aoteaora National Chair, John Minto, about the 24 pro-Palestinian protests at occured across Aotearoa over the weekend.

And they spoke to PhD Candidate in Environmental Sciences at the University of Auckland, Nargiss Taleb, about experts calling for stricter standards surrounding compostable products.

On Friday producer Evie also talked to criminology lecturer at the University of Auckland Emmy Rakete, who is Ngāpuhi, about her concerns surrounding the repeal of Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki act. 

We also talked about the Ngāpuhi hikoi taking place today in opposition to the act, and what they believe the government should be doing next.

The health system in Aotearoa has experienced issues of overcrowding and underfunding since before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. While the current government campaigned last year on increasing funding to the health sector, most of this funding went to Pharmac and providing new cancer drugs.

Despite staff shortages in the health sector, the government has continually criticised what they claim is an overspend and poor budgeting. The new health commissioner, Lester Levy, went as far to describe the system as ‘bloated’, with similar criticisms from Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in his descriptions of ‘fourteen layers of bureaucracy.’ 

Tuesday Wire host Castor spoke to the executive director of the association of salaried medical specialists, Sarah Dalton, about staffing issues in the health sector and how the government can address them.

Students in Bangladesh have been protesting against the reinstatement of the quota allocation for government jobs. These quota allocations are for relatives of veterans from the country’s war of independence from Pakistan.

The protests began when students at Dhaka University peacefully held placards and flags against the quota allocation but escalated after they were violently attacked by individuals associated with the ruling political party and police. 

Since then 200 people have been killed and another 10,000 people detained.

The protests have now turned into students and other people protesting against the ongoing killings, arrests, attacks and disappearances. 

Wire Host Caeden spoke to Fiasol Miah from the Bangladesh skilled migrants association of New Zealand about these protests.