95bFM: The Wire

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to visit Aotearoa New Zealand later this year.

The expected visit follows the signing of the trade agreement between India and New Zealand last month.

However, Prime Minister Modi is a controversial figure in Indian politics, largely for his religiously divisive policy and anti-Muslim speeches.

Wire Host Caeden spoke to Sapna Samant, GP, storyteller, and activist, who is critical of Indian Prime Minister Modi and his supporters in the diaspora, about his expected visit.

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.

For City Counselling this week, Wire Host Caeden spoke to Councillor Shane Henderson about a new AA members survey on time-of-use charging and Labour Leader Chris Hipkins ‘State of Auckland speech last week. 

And they spoke to Sapna Samant, who is a GP, storyteller, and activist critical of Indian Prime Minister Modi, about his expected visit to New Zealand later this year.

For our weekly catch-up with the Labour Party, Producer Pranuja spoke with Shanan Halbert about public service cuts, Budget priorities, and changes to NCEA.

She spoke with Associate Dean Sione Taufa about how crypto investment schemes are spreading through trusted Pacific community networks.

She also spoke with Dr Mohsen Mohammadzadeh about the risks of using AI to streamline public sector jobs and services.

Last week, figures published by RNZ showed that Afterpay made close to $20m in late fees in Aotearoa New Zealand, in the year to December 2025.

This revenue is an increase on their 2024 earnings, and comes after legislation was introduced to bring Buy Now Pay Later lending services—such as Afterpay—under similar regulation to other lenders.

Prior to September of 2024, buy now pay later lenders were exempted from the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act that governs other lenders. This is because, unlike other lenders such as credit card companies, buy now pay later schemes do not charge interest or any other fees—so long as the debts are repaid on time—meaning they did not meet the definition of a ‘consumer credit contract’.

After September of 2024, however, they came under the act, with some exemptions, such as that they don’t have to carry out the same checks as other lenders to see if a borrower can actually afford a loan.

A later amendment exempted them from the prohibition on charging unreasonable fees and also exempted them from being required to ensure default fees do no more than reasonably compensate the provider for their costs.

Earlier this year, Consumer New Zealand and FinCap (with support from Victoria University and funding from the Borrin Foundation) published the second stage of their report examining Buy Now Pay Later schemes in Aotearoa New Zealand, before and after these regulatory changes. So, to discuss the recently reported Afterpay late fee revenues within the wider context of what that report found, producer Theo spoke to the senior policy advisor at FinCap, Jake Lilley.

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.

This week on the Wedne

For our weekly catchup w/ the Green Party, Host Manny spoke with MP Ricardo Menéndez March about the changes to accommodation supplement eligibility, NZ First's proposal to buy BNZ, and the power of minor parties.

He then spoke to Emeritus Professor of Economics and former director of the Energy Centre, Basil Sharp, about the recent OECD report's findings on Aotearoa's energy policy.

Producer Theo spoke to Jake Lilley, the senior policy advisor for FinCap, on Afterpay’s recently publicised late fees revenue, and the issues of buy now pay later lending services.

Finally, News teamer Liam spoke to Professor Warwick Bagg, Dean of the Faculty of Medical Health Sciences at the University of Auckland, about the recently announced changes to undergraduate health programmes and what this will mean for students. 

The recent OECD report conducting an autopsy on the economy here in Aotearoa came back with huge concerns and transformative suggestions going forward. And while some, such as the suggestion to raise the age of superannuation, have been taken on board by the leading National Party, others, like a renewable energy transition, have been poo-pooed.

Current energy policy discussions in New Zealand have focused on liquid natural gas, also known as LNG, which needs to be stored in special conditions. The government is moving forward with plans to spend over a billion dollars on a terminal specially designed to import LNG into the country and fund it with a tax on electricity. But buying natural gas is no simple endeavour. Along with petrol, LNG prices are spiking at the moment, and standard practice is to set up to buy a regular contracted amount, which, due to limited storage conditions, may have to be used or risk costing us more.

To understand the ins and outs of the OECD report on energy policy, we got Emeritus Professor of Economics and former director of the Energy Centre, Basil Sharp, to sit down with Host Manny in the studio to share his concerns with LNG and his ideas to on how to reform the electricity market.

This week on the Tuesday Wire...

For Dear Science this week, our expert, Professor Allan Blackman speaks with us about politics and expertise, solar storms and trees, and droughts in Aotearoa. 

For our weekly catchup with the National Party, Host Alex spoke with MP Ryan Hamilton about the state of the Social Media Ban for Under-16s, the Prime Minister’s comments about immigration, and the upcoming budget. 

And for Green World this week, Producer Liam spoke to Professor Nicolas Lewis about the government’s plan to disestablish the Ministry for the Environment and merge it into a combined Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport, and what effects this will have in the short and long term? 

At the end of last year, Australia introduced a ban on social media use for those under the age of 16. While the policy was discussed across the globe in multiple countries, Australia was the first to actually introduce it. 

New Zealand is one of the countries looking into introducing its own social media ban, despite a growing amount of evidence that the bans are ineffective. Young people are not only often resourceful enough to dodge the ban, but often the most significant causes of mental harm and distress run much deeper than just social media content. 

With New Zealand announcing a pause to development of our social media ban policy on Thursday last week, News Director Castor spoke to the Director of Wellbeing, System Leadership, Data, and Insights at Te Herenga Mahara, the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Dr Ella Cullen.

Public submissions for the policing amendment bill are currently being made, and several privacy concerns have been raised. 

The bill is split into two parts, with the first focusing on intelligence gathering and the second giving police new powers to declare a wider range of public areas off limits earlier. 

The impact of the first part on privacy rights in particular has been up for debate, as new changes would allow police to take photos and record in public with a much lower bar of justification and are not required to provide a right to access or deletion. 

Originally, police were forced by the courts to stop taking photos unless they were directly related to a case, after it was revealed in 2020 that they had been taking photos of TENS of THOUSANDS of people not suspected of any crime, the majority of whom were Māori youth.

To discuss the policing amendment bill and its potential privacy impacts, host Thomas talked to University of Auckland Professor of commercial law Gehen Gunasekara.