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.
Oto and Jaycee had a chat with Japanese-American artist Mei Semones to discuss her upcoming tour dates, her latest E.P titled - Kurage and how her upbringing in both Japan and the States influenced her unique musical blend of Bossa, Jazz, Mathrock and J-Pop.
At the end of last year, Australia introduced a ban on social media use for those under the age of 16. While the policy was discussed across the globe in multiple countries, Australia was the first to actually introduce it.
New Zealand is one of the countries looking into introducing its own social media ban, despite a growing amount of evidence that the bans are ineffective. Young people are not only often resourceful enough to dodge the ban, but often the most significant causes of mental harm and distress run much deeper than just social media content.
With New Zealand announcing a pause to development of our social media ban policy on Thursday last week, News Director Castor spoke to the Director of Wellbeing, System Leadership, Data, and Insights at Te Hiringa Mahara, the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Dr Ella Cullen.
Nate is back up in the studio chatting with Rosetta and Milly about some of his favourites from the Auckland Writers Festival last week! They also recap the winners of the Ockham Book Awards last week. Whakarongo main nei!
Last week, the government announced it would amend climate laws to prevent companies from being sued over damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions. The change will prevent liability findings in tort cases and will apply to current and future cases.
The amendment is in response to a case against Fonterra made by Iwi leader and activist Mike Smith, who is not seeking any financial damages but feels it is in the public’s interest to have companies held liable. The Supreme Court granted Smith the right to pursue the case, raising questions about whether this government action is going around the courts and breaching democratic checks and balances.
These changes will directly go against the International Court of Justice opinion, which confirmed countries have a duty to prevent significant harm to the environment and to regulate the activities of companies within their jurisdiction.
To discuss the repercussions of this climate law change, host Thomas talked to Dr Justin Sobion from the University of Auckland Law School.
Public submissions for the policing amendment bill are currently being made, and several privacy concerns have been raised.
The bill is split into two parts, with the first focusing on intelligence gathering and the second giving police new powers to declare a wider range of public areas off limits earlier.
The impact of the first part on privacy rights in particular has been up for debate, as new changes would allow police to take photos and record in public with a much lower bar of justification and are not required to provide a right to access or deletion.
Originally, police were forced by the courts to stop taking photos unless they were directly related to a case, after it was revealed in 2020 that they had been taking photos of TENS of THOUSANDS of people not suspected of any crime, the majority of whom were Māori youth.
To discuss the policing amendment bill and its potential privacy impacts, host Thomas talked to University of Auckland Professor of commercial law Gehen Gunasekara.
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