The Wire with Manny

The expert mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, part of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, has written to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to express its concern about the Treaty Principles Bill.

Wire Host Caeden spoke to University of Auckland Law School Associate Professor Andrew Erueti about the letter and its significance. 

For their regular catch-up, Oto spoke to the Green Party’s Ricardo Menéndez March the party’s new emissions reduction plan.

He spoke to Professor Guhan Gunasekara - an Associate Professor of Commercial Law at the University of Auckland, to discuss an independent evaluation of the trial usage of facial recognition technology in security cameras at Foodstuffs outlets.

And he spoke to Nicola Gaston - A professor in the department of Physics at the University of Auckland, to discuss cuts to humanities and social science programs in the Marsden fund.

Sasha spoke to  Dr Julie Douglas, National President of the Tertiary Education Union, about the recent cuts to humanities and social sciences from the Marsden Fund.

And he spoke to Thomas Dowling, Environment Lecturer and a co-lead on a new earth observation lab launched in collaboration with the University of Auckland.

Just last week, Science, Innovation and Technology Minister - Judith Collins, announced that the government would be slashing funding to humanities and social sciences programmes funded under the Marsden Fund.

Collins said that Marsden funding needed to be redirected to natural science fields, such as physics, mathematics and biology, which she said had more "tangible" impacts on the economy.

However, the move has been criticised by academics from both humanities and social sciences background, who've highlighted the importance of social science in highlighting societal inequities and called the funding cuts "ideologically-driven". 

Oto spoke to Nicola Gaston from the Department of Physics at the University of Auckland for her perspective on the cuts to humanities and social science programs in the Marsden fund as a professor in a natural science field.

Just one week ago, science, innovation and technology Minister Judith Collins announced cuts to the Marsden Fund, specifically for humanities and social sciences, reinforcing the government's clear initiative to focus on rebuilding the economy and putting business first.

Following this announcement came major backlash from professors, researchers and mainstream news, which claim to shrink the already small percentage of allocated funds towards humanities to an even smaller number. The cuts will also disproportionately affect Maori researchers, cutting the existing 13% of funded research to a proposed 5.5%.

Many argue that social sciences and humanities are important for understanding societies’ and the science which will be applied to it. However, another viewpoint to consider is the millions of taxpayer money which has been going to silly projects, something which needs to be discussed in further detail.

So Sasha spoke to Dr Julie Douglas, National President of the Tertiary Education Union, who believes that the government is making a shortsighted decision for cutting humanities and social sciences from the Marsden Fund.