The Wire with Oto

This week, Cabinet reviewed the first draft of the ACT Party’s Treaty Principles Bill. 

The Bill has been met with controversy, with officials warning the government that it “calls into question the very purpose of the Treaty and its status in our constitutional arrangements” and that it could be detrimental to Māori and social cohesion. 

Criticism has also come from Māori leaders saying it could remove Māori from decision making processes entirely, as well as most recently a group of 440 Christian Church leaders signing an open letter asking MPs to say no to the Bill. 

Both National and New Zealand First have said they will not support the Bill beyond the select committee process. 

In response to the Bill, ActionStation Aotearoa has launched a campaign, Together for Te Tiriti, which “welcomes people of all backgrounds who believe that our country is better off when we honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi.” 

Sofia spoke to ActionStation Aotearoa Director, Kassie Hartendorp (Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa) about this Bill, current discourse around it, and ActionStation’s campaign.

Wire Host Caeden speaks to Senior Lecturer at the University of Auckland, Dr Tatjana Buklijaš, about the fast track legislation within the context of democratic participation on infrastructure decisions. 

This week on the Wednesday Wire...

For our weekly catchup, News and Editorial Director, Joel, spoke to The Green Party's Ricardo Menéndez March about recent changes to the treaty principles bill to include acknowledgements to Iwi and Hapu, government pay parity cuts for relief ECE teachers and concerns over Nicole McKee’s gun law reforms.

For our bi-weekly segment Get Action! Wednesday Wire Host, Oto, spoke to ActionStation’s Kareana Kee, about their petition calling for TVNZ to review their coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Producer Sasha spoke to spokesperson from Student Justice for Palestine Pōneke, Frank Mackenzie, about the Victoria University of Wellington Foundation divesting in Israeli bonds.

and Oto spoke to Associate Professor in Commercial Law at the University of Auckland, Gehan Gunasekara, to discuss the implications of the IRD sharing taxpayer data with social media firms.

It recently came to the public’s attention that the Inland Revenue Department had been providing social media firms with the personal details of taxpayers to be used in marketing campaigns. 

While the IRD have tried to reassure taxpayers that their details were anonymised using a hashing process that would replace the letters in their names with numbers, many have raised concerns about the potential privacy implications that could come with their personal data being sold to social media companies, as well as the efficacy of the hashing process itself. 

Wire Host Oto spoke to Gehan Gunasekara, Associate Professor in Commercial Law at the University of Auckland, to discuss the IRD’s selling of taxpayer data to social media firms and its potential implications.