The Wire with Manny

On their weekly chat, Justin and Health and Treaty Negotiations Minister Andrew Little talked about overseas nurse recruitement, home isolation, and revisiting past treaty settlements.

Neighbourhood Watch reports on an Australian of the Year being told not to badmouth the Prime Minister, and the passing of a controversial bill.

Justin also spoke to Paul Callister of Save Our Trains about their campaign for intercity rail.

Joe talked to Victoria McArthur from Mates in Construction about construction worker mental health.

He also chatted with Allergy NZ's Mark Dixon about a new free EpiPen campaign.

On their weekly chat, Justin and Health and Treaty Negotiations Minister Andrew Little talked about the government’s overseas recruitment campaign for specialist nurses, an academic paper calling for the community isolation programme to be revamped under the Omicron wave, and the Greens’s proposal over the Waitangi weekend to revisit all past treaty settlements and return stolen land.

A group is campaigning for the government and Kiwirail to restore intercity rail services after the Northern Explorer between Auckland and Wellington, as well as the Coastal Pacific Service between Picton and Christchurch were cancelled.

Kiwirail said it is now planning to create multi-day experiences that showcase the best of New Zealand, both on and off the track.

But the Save Our Trains campaign says it wants a comprehensive national strategy for future passenger rail services built around concerns for climate action, accessibility, and economic development.

Paul Callister is a spokesperson for the campaign and a senior associate at the Institute of Governance and Policy Studies at Victoria University. 

He spoke to Justin Wong.

Two years into the global pandemic, the world has faced a lot of changes: from new variants of the coronavirus running rampant, to the rollout of vaccines to protect us against Covid-19. We have seen nations mobilise to tackle the virus but we have also seen a small minority of people pushing back against the health measures that have been enacted. And in our digital age, it is no surprise that social media is fuelling the spread of fear and misinformation alongside the virus.

So why exactly does a global crisis invoke such strong reactions? 

Christina Huang spoke to Associate Professor Danny Osborne from the University of Auckland Social psychology department about the recent antivaccination protests, anti-government attitudes and how our mindset towards the pandemic has shifted over the past two years.