Listen back to features and interviews from 95bFM's daily news and current affairs show. Castor Chacko, Alex Fox, Emmanuel Orange, and Caeden Tipler focus on the issues of Tāmaki Makaurau and elsewhere in independent-thinking bFM style. Monday-Thursday 12-1pm on 95bFM.
Justice Minister, Paul Goldsmith, recently announced a proposal to the Electoral Act and Constitution Act, removing the ability for an individual to enrol on election day.
Alongside this comes the proposal of halting the ability to enrol during the advanced voting period.
This move has received backlash - including from within the government. This morning, Attorney-General, Judith Collins KC, says the move goes against the Bill of Rights Act.
During the 2023 general election, over 450,000 enrolled in the 12-day period, with 110,000 enrolling on election day.
A significant proportion of those later enrolments consist of young people, and in areas of bigger Māori, Pacific, and Asian communities.
In light of this move, ACT Party Leader, David Seymour, says those who have left voting to the last minute are “drop-kicks”. As well as this, the ACT Party’s justice spokesperson, Todd Stephenson, added to this, saying “Democracy works best when voters are informed, engaged, and take the process seriously,” and that “It’s outrageous that someone completely disengaged and lazy can rock up to the voting booth, get registered there and then, and then vote to tax other people’s money away.”
For our weekly catchup with the ACT Party’s Simon Court, News and Editorial Director and Monday Wire Host, Joel spoke to him about this move.
News and Editorial Director and Monday Wire Host, Joel, spoke to MP Simon Court about the scrapping of same-day election enrolments, as a part of the government’s changes to the Electoral Act, and ACT Party Leader, David Seymour’s comments that those who enrol late are “drop-kicks”.
Joel spoke to Gen Toop — a senior campaigner at Greenpeace, on NZ First’s support of ACT’s Overseas Investment Bill, and Greenpeace’s concerns with the bill.
Joel spoke to Calvin Cochran — a spokesperson for the Smokefree Expert Advisory Group, about a recent RNZ investigation alleging close connections between NZ First Party Leader, Winston Peters and multinational tobacco company, Philip Morris, and what needs to be done to combat tobacco industry lobbying.
And Joel spoke to Dr Saira Raza Khan — a Lecturer of Marketing at the University of Auckland, on the need to move away from ‘scare tactics’ in health advertising.
Earlier this week New Zealand Parliament voted to support a joint statement with 27 other countries calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
On Wednesday, Labour MP Camilla Belich’s members bill titled the “Employment Relations (Employee Remuneration Disclosure) Amendment Bill” passed its second reading.
And 50,000 people have made withdrawals from their KiwiSaver for the reason of financial hardship this year.
For our weekly catch-up with the Labour Party, Wire Host Caeden asked Deputy Leader Carmel Sepuloni about all of these topics.
This week, Auckland council is facing scrutiny as Council chief executive Phil Wilson investigates the liquidation of a company owned by chief of staff, Jaswant Singh.
His property company which called in for liquidation in June, has no assets and owes sole creditor Inland Revenue just under $560 thousand dollars.
In other news, Auckland Council is reinvigorating calls for stronger powers and the dog control act, as community leaders report a crisis of abandoned and roaming dogs across Auckland.
Both the local council and community organisations like SPCA are urging the central government to take action and support on-the-ground efforts with legislative change.
As well, a recent survey has found that local alcohol policy changes enacted at the end of 2024 have had a positive impact in Auckland. But one community advocate believes the council should not be complacent about improving policies to make the community safer against the harms of alcohol.
Tuesday Wire Host Sara spoke with Shane Henderson about all of these topics, starting with Singh’s company liquidation
Last week, Education Minister, Erica Stanford, announced that the construction of open-plan classrooms would be halted.
The National Party had previously petitioned for the classroom design in 2011, with the idea of pushing for flexibility in the way students were taught, and to accommodate a shift in how technology is used in educational spaces.
However, the classroom design has received a mixture of responses.
Some say the classroom design resulted in a noisy and distracting environment. Despite this, surveys by the Council for Educational Research showed that most teachers liked open-plan classrooms, adding that students benefitted from the classroom design.
News and Editorial Director, Joel, spoke to Blair Dravitski about the government’s move regarding open-plan classrooms.
Dravitski is a spokesperson on the topic for the New Zealand Principals’ Federation, and Tumuaki/Principal of Te Uru Tarata | Lemonwood Grove School in Rolleston.
The United Kingdom is passing significant electoral reforms as part of an effort to “boost public trust in democracy.”
One of these reforms is to lower the voting age to 16 for all elections, aligning voting rights with Scotland and Wales which already have lowered their voting ages.
The reforms also include expanding acceptable voter IDs, a new automated system to register to vote, and a tightening of rules surrounding political donations.
For International Desk, Wire Host Caeden spoke to Ralph Hall, advisor for the Electoral Reform Society, about these changes.
For our weekly catch-up with the Labour Party, Wire Host Caeden spoke to Deputy Leader Carmel Sepuloni about the war on Gaza, Labour MP Camilla Belich’s pay secrecy bill, and the increase in KiwiSaver hardship withdrawals.
For International Desk, they spoke to Ralph Hall, advisor at the Electoral Reform Society in the United Kingdom, about the significant electoral reform in the UK.
News and Editorial Director, Joel, spoke to the New Zealand Principal’s Federations’ Blair Dravitski, on the government stopping the construction of open-plan classrooms.
For this week’s City Counselling, Tuesday Wire Host Sara spoke with Councillor Shane Henderson about the liquidation of council chief of staff’s business, calls for stronger powers to respond to roaming dogs, and Auckland’s local alcohol policy.
The government is considering amending the Terrorism Suppression Act, which was enacted in 2002.
In a copy of the document seen by Newsroom, the Ministry of Justice says the reason for the potential overhaul stems from existing offences in the law not “captur[ing] the full range of behaviours or activities of concern that are part of the contemporary threat from terrorism”.
Some of the proposed amendments include making membership of a terrorist entity a criminal offence, establishing new offences for public support of an assigned terrorist act or designated groups, which would include the display of insignia, and updating definitions for digital forms of support.
Despite these proposed amendments, concerns have been raised over what would be defined as a ‘terrorist entity,’ and what implications this could have on free speech and political participation, in light of events seen overseas.
News and Editorial Director Joel, spoke to Richard Jackson — a Professor in Peace Studies at the University of Otago, about these potential amendments, and the concerns around this move.
Freshwater quality across Aotearoa has been in decline for some time, with almost 70% of monitored groundwater sites failing to meet drinking water standards for E. coli and almost half of the country’s rivers being unsuitable for recreational activities like swimming due to bacterial contamination.
Many concerns about the future of Aotearoa’s freshwater have been exacerbated by the government’s recent changes to Freshwater National Direction, with experts speculating that many of the proposed policy changes would favour commercial activity and lead to the further contamination and pollution of freshwater sources.
Oto spoke with Marnie Prickett - A research fellow at the department of public health at the University of Otago in Wellington and a member of the Public Health Association about a freshwater policy statement put out by the Public Health Association calling for urgent action to protect freshwater in Aotearoa and outlining freshwater protection as a critical public health priority.
For our weekly catchup w/ the Green Party Oto spoke with MP Ricardo Menendez-March about the recently published inflation statistics, The Greens call to lower the voting age to 16 and The most recent unemployment statistics on beneficiaries.
For this week’s Get Action! Oto spoke with Katrina Mitchell-Kouttab from Thyme for Action about a petition of hers calling for the Palmerston North City Council to adopt a ceasefire motion and ethical investment policy in response to Israel’s war in Gaza.
And he spoke with Marnie Prickett from the University of Otago in Wellington and the Public Health Association about the Public Health Association’s freshwater policy statement.
News and Editorial Director Joel, spoke to Richard Jackson — a Professor in Peace Studies at the University of Otago, about the government’s potential overhaul of the Terrorism Suppression Act, and how this could potentially impact free speech and political participation.
This week has seen discussions on New Zealand Firsts announcement that if they win the election they plan to buy BNZ and nationalise it into kiwibank, a plan some estimate to cost $30,000,000,000 and has been completely ruled out by their coalition partner in the National Party. Despite this, it’s sparked conversations around how we should be engaging with our banking sector, the vast majority of it dominated by Australian owned banks.
And critics fear that National party changes to the accommodation supplement is going to hit poor working families at a time they’re already doing it rough, nullifying other support that they are offering the rest of the country more broadly, repeating a pattern of policies that hurt poorer communities worse than the rich.
So for our weekly catchup w/ the Green Party, Host Manny spoke with MP Ricardo Menéndez March on what impact he thinks will come from restrictions to the accommodation supplement, particularly for the poor, they then discussed New Zealand Firsts policy to buy BNZ bank, and whether minor parties tend to over promise if they are constrained by the major parties who they will inevitably have to work with if they make into parliament.
Last week, National MP Catherine Wedd’s members bill for an Under-16s social media ban was paused. Instead, Education Minister Erica Stanford has pledged to, before this years election, bring a wider and more robust proposal for a ban in a larger bill.
Last week also saw Prime Minister Christopher Luxon make comments about the National Party’s stance on immigration, amidst criticised changes to compliance officer powers, and previous spats and comments over immigration policy between government coalition partners.
And with the budget expected next week, promises have begun to be made by the government for where funding can be expected, particularly within education.
Host Alex spoke with National MP Ryan Hamilton about these topics, starting with the Social Media ban.
Since 1986, the Ministry for the Environment has been the central policy advising entity in New Zealand for environmental issues. The government has recently proposed the Environment Amendment Bill, which seeks to disestablish the Ministry for the Environment, which would be amalgamated into a larger Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport.
For Green World this week, Wire producer Liam spoke with Professor Nicolas Lewis, of the University of Auckland’s School of Environment, about these proposed changes, how they fit in with the government's current priorities around the environment, and the impact this may have on New Zealand in the short-term and long-term.
Recent weeks have seen the government adopting a series of policies targeted at immigration. Some of these policies are set to be introduced immediately, while others are proposals for the upcoming election. What all of these policies have in common is that they aim to respond to an idea that there is a subset of immigrants who are making society in New Zealand worse.
This is a narrative that we’ve seen dominate conversations about immigration overseas, particularly in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. It often leads to gross displays of racism, with mass riots and crackdowns on people who have done nothing wrong. With these recent policies and media attention towards the anti-immigrant rhetoric in Aotearoa this month, concerns have been raised over whether those overseas developments could be seen here.
For this week’s catchup with the ACT Party’s Simon Court, News Director Castor planned to ask about both immigration and the move-on orders for rough sleepers, though we ran out of time to discuss both. They began by asking Simon about the government’s recent stance on immigration.
The Government has confirmed plans to disestablish the Broadcasting Standards Authority and move toward a self-regulation model for media complaints, raising questions about accountability, misinformation, and audience protection.
It has also been confirmed that the Fees Free tertiary scheme will be scrapped in the upcoming Budget, while the new citizenship test has sparked debate over whether it strengthens civic knowledge or creates another barrier for migrants.
For our weekly catch-up with the Labour Party, Producer Pranuja spoke with Shanan Halbert about these topics.
The Wire is starting a new segment - Politics with Māni Dunlop for Te Ao Māori News.
We’ll be catching up on the big political issues of the week and goings on in the House from a Māori perspective.
Wire Host Caeden caught up with Māni Dunlop about the new Te Tai Tokerau Party, the Conservation Amendment Bill passing first reading, and the submissions made as part of the Mana Wāhine inquiry this week.
Last week the government announced plans to scrap the Broadcasting Standards Authority, the entity that serves to ensure television, radio, and internet broadcasters remain accountable to members of the public.
While the government saysit trusts broadcasters to self regulate, it’s unclear what this regulation could look like, especially without the all encompassing BSA to ensure that a universal standard is met.
In addition, ACT Party Leader David Seymour has expressed dismay at some of the recent publications by state funded broadcasters TVNZ and RNZ. Since Seymour is one of the ministers responsible for appointing the board for each organisation, his comments and criticisms are being compared to threats of censorship.
Lastly, the government has announced a new test for prospective immigrants to New Zealand, which would see them quizzed over topics relating to New Zealand values, our Bill of Rights, and our system of government. While the government is proposing this standard of knowledge for immigrants, many New Zealand citizens could be unable to answer the questions.
For this weeks catchup with the National Party's Ryan Hamilton, News Director Castor asked about these topics, beginning with the BSA.
This week on Dear Science our expert Professor Allan Blackman chatted with us about the science behind football players choking, the chemistry behind the taste of beer, and the woman behind determining the structure of insulin.
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