The Wire with Oto

Oxfam has published a report on New Zealand’s fossil fuel industry, calling upon the government to immediately end the production of oil and gas. 

While New Zealand has made numerous commitments to reducing our climate impact, the new government has announced policies that promote further oil and gas production. 

Castor spoke to Oxfam’s climate justice lead and the report’s lead author, Nick Henry, about the report and how the new government’s policies will affect our emissions targets.

With the seven-day humanitarian pause in Gaza having come to an end, many have continued to call for a permanent ceasefire. In Aotearoa New Zealand, there has been continued peaceful action by protestors calling for entities to condemn Israel’s bombings and to stand with Palestine. 

For this week’s Get Action! segment, Olivia talked to Senior Lecturer of Law at the University of Auckland, Dylan Asafo, about his open letter calling for universities to stand with Palestine. In this letter, he calls for Vice-Chancellors of the New Zealand Universities to condemn Israel’s attacks. 

He Puapua, the odds are that you may not have read it, but it is most likely that you have at least heard of the controversial report.

The report was labelled as “segregation by stealth” by the former National Party Leader Judith Collins, and the report even garnered a special mention in National’s Coalition Agreement with NZ First, with the National Party agreeing to stop all work on He Puapua.

Amidst the controversy and outrage one question has remained unanswered, what actually is He Puapua?

He Puapua was a report published by a working group intended to help envision what Aotearoa would look like if we were compliant with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous people.

The National government signed New Zealand up to the declaration in 2010 after we had previously rejected joining the declaration, despite the declaration not having any legislative effect in Aotearoa.

He Puapua was written to give advice and recommendations, but had no legal authority or legislative power.

Despite this He Puapua has been purposefully obfuscated and misconstrued.

Nicholas spoke to Co-author of He Puapua Claire Charters about the report, our discussion began with a question about the reports inception.

This week for our weekly catchup with Dr Shane Reti the discussion centred on how policy aimed at Māori will be affected under National’s coalition agreements with Act and NZ First.

During our discussion we touched on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous people and He Puapua, both of which have been scrapped under coalition agreements.

Nicholas also touched on the Act Party’s treaty principles bill, which the National Party has agreed to support to the select committee stage.

To finish our interview I asked Dr Reti to clarify claims made by the Primeminister and senior minister Chris Bishop. During an interview with Q and A Chris Bishop made the claim that under Labour's smokefree 2025 plan, there would only be one tobacco retailer in the entirety of Northland, potentially making that retailer a magnet for crime.

According to the plans laid out by the director general, there would be not one but 35 retailers able to sell tobacco across Northland. I followed this up with a question about potential new vaping regulations.

The interview began with a question about the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous people.