The Wire with Alex

Last week environmental organisation Forest and Bird filed judicial review proceedings in the High Court to challenge extension of consents for the Tukituki Water Storage Project.

The consents, which were granted in 2015, were meant to expire after 10 years, but despite no physical work being done the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, Central Hawke’s Bay District Council, and Hastings District Council have decided to extend the lapse dates by an additional FIVE years.

Forest and Bird have argued the environmental context of the project has changed in the last decade and want to ensure decision makers go through the correct process. 

The organisation has a history opposing the project, winning a Supreme Court case in 2017 stopping a land swap allowing the dam to flood 22 hectares of public conservation land.

To discuss the challenge against the Tukituki water storage project consent extension producer Thomas talked to Forest & Bird acting general counsel May Downing.

A survey of Automobile Association members' views on time-of-use charging has been presented to the Auckland Council’s Transport and Infrastructure Delivery Committee. 

The survey found that members were open to congestion charging if it worked, even if they thought it was unfair.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins gave a ‘State of Auckland’ speech last week, focusing on the need for cross-party collaboration on infrastructure projects.

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

Crypto investment schemes are spreading across the Pacific, often through trusted family, church, and community networks. While they are promoted as offering financial freedom and fast returns, regulators have warned that some schemes carry serious risks and limited protections for investors.

Producer Pranuja spoke with Associate Dean Pacific Sione Taufa about how trust can be exploited in Pacific communities, why endorsement matters, and what people should know before investing.

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.