Afternoons

Auckland is full of colour right now as the Rugby League World Cup heats up and fans make their allegiances known by proudly flying flags from cars and houses. Sunday night sees fierce rivals Samoa and Tonga go head-to-head in what's been billed as one of the biggest international rugby league clashes in decades .... with a place in the semi-finals potentially up for grabs! The game's taking place in Sydney, but you just know Auckland is going to be rocking, Samoan league fan Albert Scott chats to Jesse.

We all know the iconic Kiwi soft drink Lemon and Paeroa or L&P if you prefer, but did you know there's a rival lemon fizzy drink from the same region? Lemon and Te Aroha or L&T first hit the shelves back in 1887... using water from the Mount Te Aroha spring ... the drink disappeared in the 1970s but now it's making a comeback .. Lemon and Te Aroha director Richard Revell joins Jesse to discuss.

Two Pak'nSave supermarkets have been fined a combined $580,500 for misleading customers over their pricing. The stores, in Silverdale and Hamilton, were found to have breached the Fair Trading Act, including making misleading claims about discounts and special prices. It's not the first time a supermarket has been caught doing this. You might remember the outrage in 2022 when the Commerce Commission's market study into the retail grocery sector found the major retailers were earning excess profits of around one millon dollars a day. Which got us wondering .. do fines actually work as a deterrent? To discuss Jesse is joined by Consumer NZ's Head of Research and Advocacy Gemma Rasmussen

Wallace Chapman and Jesse Mulligan star in the shortest show on radio, where they show they really can make something out of nothing, join them to be part of their delight, or to simply despair. Wallace will also preview what's on The Panel tonight.

It's time for our weekly Political Group Chat - a space for good faith debate and friendly disagreement. Joining Jesse this week, and every week from now on, are Victoria University political scientist Dr Lara Greaves, comedian and political commentator Tim Batt, and screenwriter and Free Speech Union member Dane Giraud.

Let's get into some money matters, personal finance whizz Mary Holm is with Jesse to run through the KiwiSaver changes being proposed by the different political parties.

It's time to return to the A-Z of Aotearoa. We had so much fun the first time round that we've gone back to the beginning of the alphabet, and we've arrived at 'B' today so we're heading to Wellington to visit the Beehive. Jesse will speak to Parliamentary Service Chief Executive Rafael Gonzalez-Montero about what goes on inside and what we can discover on a visit. But we'll start with the building itself, and for that Jesse is joined by architectural historian Dr Jessica Halliday. Jessica wrote her PhD on the design and construction of the Beehive so perhaps there's no one better placed to talk us through it.

When Frances Haugen blew the whistle on Facebook in 2021, she exposed how Meta put engagement and profits ahead of the safety and the wellbeing of users. Her story is the subject of The Social Reckoning, Aaron Sorkin's follow-up film to The Social Network. Now she's concerned those problems could return on a much bigger scale as Artificial Intelligence creeps into our lives. Haugen is starting an initiative with fellow whistleblower Brittany Kaiser who exposed Cambridge Analytica's misuse of Facebook data during elections. They want to help tech employees who see wrongdoing understand how they can safely blow the whistle just as they did. Frances Haugen joins Jesse

It's Halloween on Saturday and for many of you that will mean kids roaming the streets looking for lollies. Constable Bryan Ward is with Jesse to share some tips on making the 31st fun rather than genuinely frightening for the children in your life.

Much of the conversation around screen time focuses on the risks social media poses to teenagers, but what about our younger children? Research shows screen use in under-twos can cause delays in language development and social skills, as well as problems with sleep and eating ... and almost two -thirds of babies and toddlers in New Zealand exceed recommended screen use So if we know the potential risks, why are we still putting screens in front of our babies and toddlers? University of Auckland's Dr Samantha Marsh joins Jesse to discuss.