Featuring  What's Up? with Steve Abel of the Green Party and the Aural Emporium!

As of yesterday, former Green party MP, Darleen Tana, has been removed from parliament after the greens agreed to invoke the Waka jumping legislation at their last general meeting.

The removal of Darleen Tana from parliament concludes a lengthy saga following her eviction from the Green Party amidst allegations of migrant worker exploitation at her husband’s business.

Despite invoking the Waka Jumping Law in the end, the Greens continued to reach out to Tana and insist that she voluntarily resign instead. Tana refused to do so, as she still maintains her innocence even after numerous investigations into her involvement in the allegations.

For their weekly catch up, I spoke to Green Party MP Ricardo Menendez-March about the removal of Darleen Tana from Parliament and the party’s decision to invoke the Waka jumping law.

They also talked about recent updates to the three strikes legislation, as well as changes to the resource management act that would restrict the ability of local councils to manage their freshwater policy.

Oto reached out to Sinead O’Flynn, the agriculture campaigner at Greenpeace Aotearoa, for the organisation’s take on the government’s recent changes to Freshwater management policy.

This was after a number of ministers announced a new amendment to the Resource Management Amendment Bill covering Freshwater and Other Matters that would prevent local councils from notifying their freshwater plans until the Government replaces the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management.

Recently, a study was conducted at the university of Auckland analysing the use of A.I in predicting the prevalence of respiratory disease outbreaks during flu seasons in Aotearoa.

Forecasting models are essential for hospitals in predicting admissions and subsequently allocating resources and beds.

However, during peak flu periods, and, most notably the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals across Aotearoa have been largely underprepared for respiratory disease outbreaks, hence why experts have called for improvements to be made to traditional forecasting models. 

Oto spoke to Dr Steffen Albrecht, a Research Fellow at the School of Computer Science at the University of Auckland and author of the study, to talk about the study and how A.I could help disease forecasting models in hospitals across Aotearoa. 

For their regular catch-up, Oto spoke to the Green Party’s Ricardo Menéndez March about former MP Darleen Tana’s removal from Parliament, updates to the Three Strikes Law and the government’s changes to freshwater protections.

He spoke to Sinead O’Flynn from Greenpeace Aotearoa for a follow-up conversation about the changes to freshwater policy.

And he spoke to Dr Steffen Albrecht, Research Fellow at the School of Computer Science at the University of Auckland, to discuss about a study of his analysing the use of A.I in predicting respiratory disease outbreaks during flu seasons.

Sasha spoke to Honorary Senior Lecturer in Nutrition Rashjiri Roy from the University of Sydney about her recent research linking poor body image with social media use

And he spoke to Kelly Garton, Policy Researcher from the University of Auckland and spokesperson for Health Coalition Aotearoa about cuts to funding for school lunches.

Jonny chats to Serebii about his upcoming album Dime and play a first-spin of the leading single Might As Well Be Watching. The full album is due for digital and vinyl release in March 2025, so keep your eyes and ears out!

On the 23rd of October, a nationwide hui will be held by thousands of workers in 12 different places in the country, following policies coming into place since the current government took power last year that impacts workers’ rights, such as abolishing fair pay agreements, and mass job cuts in the public sector.

According to RNZ’s tracker, 2000 public service jobs have been cut from the period of December last year to June this year, with 7000 being cut from the public sector.

News and Editorial Director, Joel, spoke to the President of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU), Richard Wagstaff, about the plans for the nationwide hui, and what the NZCTU hope to get out of this day of action.

Oto played a variety of experimental Bumiputera Hip-Hop and Psych-Rock while Jaycee was recovering from a flu he contracted from Oto the week before. 

Oto also chatted with Aliya, a former member of the NiceGoblins collective here in Tāmaki Makaurau currently working as an independent filmmaker in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Jonny starts of the morning with an interview with Serebii about his upcoming album Dime and play a first-spin of the leading single Might As Well Be Watching. Kaitlyn reported in from Q Theatre to cover the Great Camp-In with Camping cast Tom Sainsbury, Chris Parker, Kura Forrester and Brynley Stent. The comedic cast of the upcoming Silo Theatre production spent the evening sleeping in tents on the Q Theatre stage to get into the zone for the upcoming play (which has very little to do with actual camping and more to do with high camp). Julien Dyne then phoned in to chat to Jonny about the upcoming Circling Sun and Romi Wrights gig at Double Whammy this Friday. To round off the morning was Ready Steady Learn, brought to you by Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland. Dr Kiri Dell spoke about the Faculty of Engineering and Business School's collaboration with iwi in the Whareponga Valley to address climate change related challenges facing the Ruātoria region of Tai Rawhiti. 

For Dear Science this week, our expert Dr Cushla McGoverin chatted to us about monarch butterfly migration, underground worms and snails, and new discoveries regarding the Tasmanian tiger genome.