The Wire with Oto

Users are continuing to boycott celebrities on social media following the beginning of  #Blockout2024. The activist movement was sparked by a peak in digital audiences’ frustrations surrounding the concurrent platforming of wealth and celebrity at the MET Gala alongside scenes of humanitarian devastation in Gaza. The parallel has been described by many as uncomfortably close to dystopian narratives such as Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy. 

Producer Jasmine Gray spoke to Media and Communications expert, Dr. Sabrina Moro, to further understand the social impact of the #Blockout2024 movement

For our weekly catch-up with Labour Party Deputy Leader Carmel Sepuloni Wire Host Caeden asks about the Government's comments on welfare and the unrest in New Caledonia. 

They also speak to Student Justice for Palestine’s Layan Khalil about today’s protest action.

For City Counselling, Caeden speaks to Councillor Lotu Fuli about the long-term plan and her Airport shares amendment. 

And they speak with Greenpeace spokesperson Sinead Deighton-O’Flynn about their upcoming March for Nature.

Producer Jasmine speaks with Emeritus Professor Dave Kelly about what his new research on Mast Seeding in European Beeches signals for native conservation efforts in Aotearoa.

And she speaks with Dr. Sabrina Moro about #Blockout2024, a digital activist movement to boycott celebrity amidst silence on events happening in Gaza following the Met Gala earlier this month.

Last week, New Caledonia became the site of widespread civil unrest and mass riots. Protests erupted in response to a decision made by the French government to grant voting rights to residents of New Caledonia who had been residing on the Island for at Least 10 years, overturning a previous constitutional amendment that only permitted the Island’s indigenous Kanak population and residents residing on the Island before 1998 to vote in local elections. 

New Caledonia’s Indigenous Kanak people, who have largely resisted French rule and have campaigned for independence for several generations, said that the constitutional amendment would undermine their push for independence and give greater preference to newer French settlers. 

Oto spoke to Professor Yvonne Underhill-Sem, a professor of Pacific studies at the university of Auckland, to discuss the context behind the current unrest, and the Kanak independence movement as a whole.

For Dear Science this week, Dr Cushla McGoverin chatted to us about synthetic leather made of mushrooms, DNA origami, and the colour of rodent teeth. 

Wire host Castor spoke to the National Party’s Katie Nimon about the government’s recent decisions surrounding Māori wards and the future of the Waitangi Tribunal.  

Producer Sofia spoke to Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner at Te Kāhui Tika Tangata, the Human Rights Commission, Saunoamaali’i Karanina Sumeo, about a report the Commission jointly released with KPMG last week, ‘Counting the Cost: Estimating the economic cost of workplace bullying and harassment on New Zealand employers’.

She also spoke to co-Tumuaki of Te Hunga Rōia Māori o Aotearoa, the Māori Law Society, Tai Ahu (Waikato, Ngāti Kahu (Te Paatu)), about tikanga Māori being taught in law schools regarding King Counsel’s Gary Judd recent filing of a complaint over incoming compulsory teaching.