Afternoons

Biosecurity NZ has now doubled its surveillance zone for the insect on Auckland's North Shore Biosecurity teams will now monitor an 11 km radius across Glenfield and Birkdale as they work to limit the impact the predatory hornet could have on New Zealand's honey-bee populations.

As the school holidays approach along with the idea of having to entertain kids during the break, Dr Camilo Oritz has one piece of advice. Relax. The secret to parenting, he says, is to do less. Dr Ortiz is a leading voice in child psychology and mental health. He's developed what he calls Independence Therapy, an approach that helps kids become braver, stronger, and more resilient by doing things for themselves and encouraging kids to face the situations that make them anxious instead of steering around them. It also comes with a challenge for parents because sometimes, he says, the best way to support your child is to step back, not step in.

Time for bookmarks, where we get interesting people to share their picks of books, music, films and anything else that takes their fancy. Today I'm joined by one of our most prolific actors, Cameron Rhodes He's appeared in over 100 stage productions, films like Lord of the Rings, and The Chronicles of Narnia, and a ton of TV shows too, Brokenwood Mysteries, The Luminaries, and most recently Spartacus: House of Ashur.

Each week on a Wednesday Kelly Gibney shares a recipe that is delicious and nutritious without being too demanding on time. Today's salad celebrates all the summer produce favourites.

Our chance to travel to places others have explored - this week we are off to China.

Time now for our regular catch up with Claire Concannon for Our Changing World. And this week, she's got a story from RNZ journalist Veronika Meduna, about restoration efforts in Porirua Harbour.

A few years ago, plans to regenerate and restore Wynyard Quarter on Tamaki Makaurau's waterfront were announced. But one of the issues in turning it into an open public space is the soil, which is contaminated. Now, University of Auckland graduate Marissa Porteous has come up with a clever solution that's even won her an award.

This year it's gone to Mark Taylor. Mark has contributed to the Navy for more than 35 years as both a uniformed official and as a civilian. He joins Jesse to tell us more about his life and work.

A power struggle looks to be brewing at NZ Cricket over the future of the domestic game. NZ Cricket chief executive Scott Weenink is understood to be taking a break from his day-to-day duties, ahead of talks about his future in the role. But cricket isn't the only national sport where rumours are swirling, Netball NZ also seems to be in disarray. Publisher of the Bounce Substack newsletter, Dylan Cleaver joins Jesse to discuss.

We're going to start the show with some good news because the latest visitor stats are out and it's looking positive for Kiwi tourist operators. Stats NZ says overseas visitor arrivals were 3.45 million in the October 2025 year, that's an increase of 205,000 from a year before. To discuss what's driving this growth, Jesse is joined by Tourism Industry Aotearoa's Rebecca Ingram.