The Wire with Caeden

For City Counselling this week, Wire Host Caeden spoke to Councillor Shane Henderson about Community Committee Grants for 2026, and a proposal from Mainfreight to open bus lanes to trucks. 

They also spoke to Associate Professor Theuns Henning of the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Engineering about the challenges for New Zealand’s infrastructure in the face of increasing extreme weather events. 

For our weekly catch-up with the Labour Party, Producer Pranuja spoke to Shanan Halbert about leadership pressure on the government, inflation, and the response to recent flooding.

She spoke with Emeritus Professor Tim Hazledine about New Zealand First’s proposal to break up the supermarket duopoly.

And she spoke with Dr Christopher Cornwall about the environmental impacts of sewage discharge following flooding in Wellington.

Auckland Council’s Community Committee has allocated $300,000 across 11 community-led organisations as part of the Thriving Communities Grant.

Council has also allocated $286,000 to arts and culture projects, ranging from dance, performance, poetry, music, and storytelling.

And logistics and transport company Mainfreight has approached Auckland Transport, suggesting that bus lanes be opened to trucks and courier vehicles. 

Wire Host Caeden spoke to Councillor Shane Henderson about both of these topics.

Last week, the Green Party leaders, Marama Davidson and Chloe Swarbrick, hosted their state of the planet address, where they launched their call to electrify the nation.

On top of that, events this week have led the party to criticise the government. The first critique, instigated by the floods that swept the nation, hitting the Coromandel and causing a state of emergency in the Wellington Region, led the Greens to question the government's decreased funding of flood responses as harsh weather increases.

The second critique came with a cabinet paper this week that shows the government is planning on moving ahead with reforms to legislation that will see references to the Treaty of Waitangi and Te Tiriti o Waitangi redefined, in what the government sez is about ‘standardisation’ but what the Green Party sees as dishonouring Te Tiriti.

So for our weekly catch-up with the Green Party’s Ricardo Menéndez March, we discuss their criticisms of the government but start with a discussion of their electrification policy.

Recently, amid a swirl of media speculation and rumours, the Prime Minister made the unprecedented move of initiating a vote of confidence in himself, with the aim of clearing the air and dispelling the notion that he has lost the support of his caucus. Yesterday, the Prime Minister announced that he had succeeded in the anonymous ballot, although he refrained from revealing the exact numbers. 

We’ve seen a variety of reactions from other political leaders, with Labour leader Chris Hipkins insisting that the votes should be released and, and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters describing the whole thing as a strategic error on the Prime Minister’s part.

Producer Toby spoke to Michael Swanson, a research fellow at the University of Otago, about the political implications of this vote. They also discussed the rising popularity of New Zealand First, and talked about the future of that party beyond the leadership of Winston Peters.