The Wire with Manny

For our weekly catchup w/ the Green Party’s Ricardo Menendez-March, Oto spoke to him about the suspension of three Te Pati Maori MPs, The Waitangi Tribunal's recommendation to halt the regulatory standards bill and the impact of the social security amendment bill on beneficiaries.

He spoke to Dr Claire Achmad, Chief Children’s Commissioner about New Zealand ranking 32nd out of 36 countries for child wellbeing in UNICEF’s recent childwellbeing report.

And he spoke to Maher Nazzal from the Palestine Forum of New Zealand about how the recent clearance to bring aid trucks into Gaza won’t be enough to address the needs of affected Palestinians

Max spoke to Dr Annie Jones, a Research fellow in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland, to talk about a new visualisation tool that is being developed for children during cancer treatment.

And he spoke to Dr Denis Odlin, of the Management and International Business Department at the University of Auckland, about the potential for New Zealand to take advantage of the new space economy.

Many experts believe that New Zealand should also be grabbing more opportunities to keep up with the rest of the world, and invest more in “deep tech."

Producer Faith spoke to Professor Frederique Vanholsbeeck from the University of Auckland’s physics department about deep and quantum technologies, and their benefits. 

This week on the Tuesday Wire...

For Dear Science, our expert, Professor Allan Blackman chats with us about personalised gene therapy treatment, using molecules to crack passcodes, and Olympic pool bombing. 

In our weekly catchup with the National Party’s Tom Rutherford, Wire host Castor asked about Pay Equity in light of the government’s recent changes. 

They also spoke to Professor Terryann Clark from the University of Auckland about social media use among young people. 

Producer Faith spoke to the Dr Chanelle Duley, an economics lecturer at the university of Auckland, about how financial technology can be used for good, and what we need to be cautious of.

She also spoke to Professor Frederique Vanholsbeeck from the university’s physics department about deep tech, and how NZ can better utilise it. 

Last week Finance minister Nicola Willis announced a $190 million social investment fund that will invest in at least 20 social service initiatives over the next year. 

Three projects will receive initial funding: an Autism New Zealand programme providing early support to 50 families; an expansion of Emerge Aotearoa’s work with at-risk youth; and He Piringa Whare, a data-informed programme to support at-risk Māori.

Social Investment is a policy that has been seen from previous National governments, largely associated with former prime minister Bill English. 

Under English, the policy involved using data to calculate which groups of people cost the government the most over a lifetime. Interventions aimed at reducing that cost are then targeted at those people. 

However critics say this often leads to fiscal outcomes being valued over social outcomes, or profit over people. 
This time around the government claims they’ll focus on social outcomes over financial ones - but the policy’s real effects are yet to be seen. 

Producer Evie spoke to the University of Auckland’s Associate Professor in Environment Tom Baker about the fund, and how we can expect it to take effect this time around.