The Wire with Oto

For their regular catch-up, Oto spoke to the Green Party’s Ricardo Menéndez March about former MP Darleen Tana’s removal from Parliament, updates to the Three Strikes Law and the government’s changes to freshwater protections.

He spoke to Sinead O’Flynn from Greenpeace Aotearoa for a follow-up conversation about the changes to freshwater policy.

And he spoke to Dr Steffen Albrecht, Research Fellow at the School of Computer Science at the University of Auckland, to discuss about a study of his analysing the use of A.I in predicting respiratory disease outbreaks during flu seasons.

Sasha spoke to Honorary Senior Lecturer in Nutrition Rashjiri Roy from the University of Sydney about her recent research linking poor body image with social media use

And he spoke to Kelly Garton, Policy Researcher from the University of Auckland and spokesperson for Health Coalition Aotearoa about cuts to funding for school lunches.

Social media is blamed for many ill effects that plague modern life, and unsurprisingly a recent research conducted on New Zealand women aged eighteen to twenty-four has found that social media use correlates with poor body image.

At this period of life, it is common for debilitating eating disorders to develop. The research has found there to be a weak link between social media and poor body image, however this still raises questions about future legislations and the complexity of the relationship between young people and social media.

Sasha spoke to Honorary Senior Lecturer in Nutrition Rajshri Roy, from the University of Sydney Australia, about her recent study and other implications.

Last Monday marked one year since the 2023 general election. Since this election, we’ve seen a range of policies and changes from this new National-led government. Many of these policies have been met with protest and controversy, leading poll numbers for National to waver. In our weekly catchup with the National Party’s Katie Nimon Wire host Castor asked about how these poll numbers will influence the party moving forward. 

This past week, we also saw a reveal that $60,000 was spent on catering for a Health NZ Te Whatu Ora conference in late March. The budget accounted for breakfast and lunch across 300 members, roughly working out to 100 dollars per meal. Given this government’s attitudes towards public spending, this reveal has raised some eyebrows. 

On Friday, staff at the University of Auckland held a strike on campus, over ongoing conversations with the University regarding bettering working conditions and improving pay for staff.

This follows similar protest action that happened on campus THREE weeks ago, with members as a part of THREE different universities striking on the same day. These rallies were attended by 4,000 Te Hautū Kahurangi | Tertiary Education Union members overall, making this strike action the largest since staff from all EIGHT universities striked two years prior.

News and Editorial Director, and Monday Wire Host, Joel, spoke to the organiser of the Tertiary Education Union, Nicole Wallace, about the most recent strikes at the University of Auckland, and what this means moving forward.