A review into a new visa category that sparked more problems than it solved is scathing about Immigration NZ's processes and systems. When you introduce a high-trust model of working into a sector known for unscrupulous behaviour, the results aren't pretty. It was an answer to a problem that didn't exist. And it was a mess. When the Labour government introduced the Accredited Employer Work Visa in 2022, it was a reaction to some horrific stories of migrant exploitation, mainly of recen...
Mar 12, 2024•24 min•Ep 1005•Transcript available on Metacast A haka incorporating barbs aimed at the Government has rekindled a decades old debate over sport and politics. The Hurricanes Poua's season started with a controversial haka criticising the Government, with critics asking if politics belong in sport. In the first haka of their season, the Hurricanes Poua used the words "karetao o te Kāwana kakī whero" -- "puppets of this redneck government". It was a political statement that got the attention of the government, the media...
Mar 11, 2024•24 min•Ep 1004•Transcript available on Metacast The laws that govern our money-lending landscape are in for another shakeup. Law makers tread a tricky tightrope when it comes to getting money-lending rules right. The Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act is a mouthful of a law that has far-reaching effects for would-be borrowers. Make it too easy to get cash and vulnerable people end up in debt. Make it too hard and potential home buyers become perpetual renters. In yet another shakeup by the new government, the rules are changing again. ...
Mar 10, 2024•24 min•Ep 1003•Transcript available on Metacast All ice is not created equal, and the ice created by Conor Whale is top-shelf stuff. A man who has spent far too long thinking about ice is now making a business out of it. It's an essential component to any good bar drink, but how much attention do you pay to the ice in your glass? If you're the average person, probably not much. But it's something Conor Whale spent a lot of time thinking about during his years as a bartender. "When I was in Melbourne, we had a really cool c...
Mar 08, 2024•24 min•Ep 1002•Transcript available on Metacast Auckland University's new space centre will soon take control of a satellite that detects the world's worst methane emitters. The Detail visits a mission control centre in the basement of Auckland University, that within a year will be operating a methane-detecting satellite. There's been another SpaceX rocket launch in California, but this one was watched keenly at not one, but two mission control centres in Auckland. This week's Falcon 9 lift-off contained a payload designed to show,...
Mar 07, 2024•23 min•Ep 1001•Transcript available on Metacast Hollywood's red carpet is getting rolled out for its premier event, the Oscars, for the 96th time this weekend In spite of living in the age of Netflix, the gilt still isn't peeling off the Academy Awards. It's the big night of the year in Hollywood, where the film industry gets on their Sunday best and struts the red carpet for the annual award ceremony of the season. Newshub entertainment editor Kate Rodger says the Oscars is an event that stops the whole city, and truly is one of a ...
Mar 06, 2024•21 min•Ep 1000•Transcript available on Metacast An Auckland school for some of our most vulnerable children is crumbling, and any hopes for a rebuild have just been dashed by the government's moves to halt school property developments. Twenty years of hoping for better facilities - such as buildings that aren't riddled with mould - have been dealt another blow at Sommerville School. Sewage bubbling out of floors, mushrooms growing above windows, prison-like outdoor spaces. This is the reality for the Sommerville special school, specifica...
Mar 05, 2024•25 min•Ep 999•Transcript available on Metacast The first of our athletes to wear the silver fern in Paris have been announced For New Zealand athletes, preparing for the Olympics means more than just being at the top of their sport With less than five months until the 2024 Paris Olympic Games begin, New Zealand has begun to announce its athletes. Speed climbers Julian David and Sarah Tetzlaff are the first who have been selected to represent the country at the summer games. Plenty of others are showing promise - at the just-concluded World A...
Mar 04, 2024•23 min•Ep 998•Transcript available on Metacast One in 17 New Zealanders have what's termed as a rare disorder. March is the month to highlight their lives and struggles. March is Rare Disorder Month, where attention's drawn to the 300,000 New Zealanders who are uncommon, but who have a lot in common. When Ursula Christel's son was diagnosed with Angelman syndrome, she felt relieved. "I now had something in my toolbox that I knew how I could handle. I just had to research it, everything was step by step." she says. Angelma...
Mar 03, 2024•21 min•Ep 997•Transcript available on Metacast Magazines are facing extinction by internet. Are they special enough to save? The last magazine shops are shutting - they're going the way of video and record stores. But like vinyl, will there be a renaissance? There's nothing like leafing through the pages of a gorgeous, glossy magazine. But those days could soon be over, judging by plummeting readership figures and mass closures. Five years ago, the publishing industry sold around 16 million magazines a year in New Zealand. Now it&#...
Mar 01, 2024•21 min•Ep 996•Transcript available on Metacast It was a skin-of-your-teeth operation from the start, and Newshub's 35 year old life looks to be ending with multi-million dollar losses presided over by off-shore owners Those passionate about news and Newshub hope a white knight will appear on the horizon, but more realistic commentators say that horse has bolted In the early days of TV3 there wasn't enough money for a sound proof booth to record voice-overs so reporters would wrap themselves in a curtain. Former reporter turned weather p...
Feb 29, 2024•24 min•Ep 995•Transcript available on Metacast Leap year is all about matching the seasons to time. It's just a construct, but try telling that to February 29th babies. The Detail looks at the reason why, every four years, our calendar has a hiccup. On 4 October, 1582, Romans went to bed, but when they woke in the morning, it was 15 October. Those 10 disappeared days were the result of a papal decree changing from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian. "What they noticed with the Julian calendar, which preceded the Gregorian, is that ove...
Feb 28, 2024•21 min•Ep 994•Transcript available on Metacast At festivals, a volunteer-based service runs quality-control on illegal drugs. The Detail goes inside a drug-checking tent at a music festival, where drug testers say 10 percent of drugs could be dodgy. Every weekend 80,000 doses of the illegal party drug MDMA are taken around New Zealand. That's the number Casey Spearin, manager of the drug-checking programme KnowYourStuff, quotes from police wastewater testing data. "That's just MDMA, that's not including all the other thin...
Feb 27, 2024•23 min•Ep 993•Transcript available on Metacast What is the point of the Waitangi Tribunal if it doesn't have the power to stop a government that appears to be acting against the interests of Māori? A fight is brewing between the government and the Waitangi Tribunal over scrapping the Māori Health Authority - but we already know who's won. The government has gazumped the Waitangi Tribunal over its bill to get rid of the newly established Māori Health Authority - Te Aka Whai Ora. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced yesterday it wou...
Feb 26, 2024•23 min•Ep 992•Transcript available on Metacast Four years after the first lockdown, the way we work has changed. Covid-19 lockdowns closed offices and started a new way of working. Now companies want staff back in the office, but employees - and data - say no. During the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, working from home became a necessity. Then for many it became the norm. Now there's a battle playing out between bosses and workers - many employees want to stay put at home, while employers are urging, and even mandating, a return t...
Feb 25, 2024•22 min•Ep 991•Transcript available on Metacast A life-changing diagnostic device tested on sheep in New Zealand is about to be trialled on humans Work being done on a farm outside of Rotorua has the potential to change, and save, the lives of hundreds of Kiwis and potentially millions globally Just outside of Rotorua is a sheep farm that looks like any other. Until you climb the stairs of a big shed and peer inside a small room that is a surgery, where the sheep are operated on. Look closely at the sheep in the pens and you might see that th...
Feb 23, 2024•24 min•Ep 990•Transcript available on Metacast Good, fast and on-budget infrastructure building shouldn't have to wait for disaster situations to swing into action. A new report on the success of restoring access to the Coromandel after a slip has lessons for future projects - but is anyone listening? The tight and twisty route north through the Brynderwyn Hills closes on Monday as work begins to make the State Highway more resilient to floods and storms. It's not ideal. There are three alternative routes, and the track for trucks throu...
Feb 22, 2024•24 min•Ep 989•Transcript available on Metacast Conflict and coverage - why some conflicts dominate headlines for months, then suddenly get ignored Two years ago, Russia went to war with Ukraine. The fighting continues, but New Zealand has largely stopped watching. This weekend will mark two years since Russia invaded Ukraine, beginning a war that has killed or wounded hundreds of thousands of people. But for the past four months, reports from that war have slipped down our newsfeeds, replaced by news from Gaza and Israel. A few years ago, it...
Feb 21, 2024•22 min•Ep 988•Transcript available on Metacast The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case against some of New Zealand's biggest polluters in what some describe as judicial activism The world is watching for the outcome of a unique climate change case in front of our Supreme Court that will expose the actions - or lack of them - of our biggest polluters The bosses of several of our biggest polluting companies will soon be under the microscope when they take the stand in the High Court and reveal what they are doing about their carbon footpri...
Feb 20, 2024•23 min•Ep 987•Transcript available on Metacast Researchers are making some headway tackling a problem that New Zealand has a shameful record in - childhood obesity. A new study that fed supplements to pregnant women suggests we can begin the fight against childhood obesity before babies are even born. Obesity - it's been in the headlines for decades in Aotearoa and the statistics have hardly moved. New Zealand has the third highest rate of obesity in the OECD, and the second highest childhood obesity rate. So what's the key to fixi...
Feb 19, 2024•22 min•Ep 986•Transcript available on Metacast We're back to where we were in 1969 when it comes to easing congestion over Auckland's harbour Short-sightedness and penny-pinching planning have time and time again stalled plans for good solutions when it comes to Auckland's harbour crossing Countless ideas, more than 50 years, a great deal of discussion, yet no progress has been made on fixing Auckland's harbour crossing woes. Today's episode of The Detail looks back at the history of the harbour bridge, the plans to replace or...
Feb 18, 2024•24 min•Ep 985•Transcript available on Metacast The ripples of a war in the music industry spread far further than just ruining Gen Alpha's TikTok time. When a music industry monster goes up against a social media behemoth, the result is an artistic scorched earth One of the biggest social media platforms is in an all-out war with the world's biggest record conglomerate. Universal Music Group has stopped licensing its music to TikTok and it's causing a big uproar. Today's episode of The Detail looks at why this really matters a...
Feb 16, 2024•24 min•Ep 984•Transcript available on Metacast Kane Williamson is the world's number one batsman right now, but what he brings to the Black Caps is worth far more than runs on the board. It's virtually impossible to compare two cricketers from different decades when one was a bowler and the other is a batsman. But we're going to ask the question anyway - Williamson or Hadlee as our best ever? Is Kane Williamson our greatest ever cricketer - better even than the great Sir Richard Hadlee? He's the clear number one batsman in the...
Feb 15, 2024•23 min•Ep 983•Transcript available on Metacast A $90 million housing fund promises to tackle the Bay of Plenty's housing crisis Kāinga Ora houses stand empty just down the road from an emergency hotel evicting tenants. A new investment fund could be the fix. A $90 million housing fund launched in the Bay of Plenty promises to be a gamechanger for tackling the severe housing shortage in the region, and has ambitions to eventually list on the stock market. But it won't be soon enough to help emergency housing tenants at an Ōpōtiki motel ...
Feb 14, 2024•24 min•Ep 982•Transcript available on Metacast The convoluted legal troubles of former -- and maybe future -- US President Donald Trump are playing out in court rooms across America Former US President Donald Trump faces 91 felony counts across four criminal cases. Believe it or not, that's not enough to bar him from the White House The US Supreme Court has heard arguments about whether Donald Trump is eligible to run for president and is currently deliberating over the issue. Does encouraging a mob to overthrow the results of a democra...
Feb 13, 2024•23 min•Ep 981•Transcript available on Metacast Critics say the government's plan to speed up infrastructure projects puts too much power in the hands of one person. There's a price to be paid for getting the country 'back on track' - with some groups saying new powers for ministers over infrastructure projects go too far and risk ruining the environment. The government's plan to speed up infrastructure projects by giving more decision-making power to ministers has set off alarm bells around the country. It's a change...
Feb 12, 2024•21 min•Ep 980•Transcript available on Metacast Two AUT academics are taking their Taylor Swift obsession to the next extreme at a Swiftposium in Melbourne, ahead of the star's Australian tour Taylor Swift is more than a pop icon - she's a phenomenal businesswoman and the subject of university studies around the world, including this week a Swiftposium in Melbourne If you stripped her back to her guitar and her voice Taylor Swift would be a mega star. But add in her business nous and her genius in using her online power to connect with h...
Feb 11, 2024•24 min•Ep 979•Transcript available on Metacast Homes suspended over landslides; lives suspended by bodies that can't or won't help More than a year on from the massive slips caused by Auckland's big stormy Anniversary weekend, hundreds of residents are still in a holding pattern over the fate of their properties. Some are facing bureaucratic nightmares and huge cash shortfalls. Titirangi resident Catherine Albiston is facing a $100,000 bill - or more - to build a retaining wall on council-owned land so that she can access her home. Her ...
Feb 08, 2024•23 min•Ep 978•Transcript available on Metacast Around 10,000 new donors could flood into the New Zealand Blood Service after a long-standing restriction is lifted. But if another ban is re-visited that number could rise further As our blood service lifts a restriction that could see an influx of thousands of new donors, it's being urged to have a look at another aspect of its rules that would change things for the gay community. The New Zealand Blood Service has made changes that could bring another 10,000 donors to its doors, but it&#x...
Feb 07, 2024•20 min•Ep 977•Transcript available on Metacast When politicians fail to call out a lie by one of their own, it can have a dampening effect on democracy Calling out disinformation is becoming increasingly difficult as it reverberates on social media. That's enough of a problem, but when faulty public perceptions are used to formulate government policy, democracy is in trouble. Politicians and journalists have always had a combative relationship ... but blaming the media for everything now seems to be a national pastime. The rise, rise an...
Feb 06, 2024•23 min•Ep 976•Transcript available on Metacast 
