Nine To Noon

A documentary project has been following the lives of four Maori children since they were born in 2000. The Whanau documentary series first broadcast 22 years ago when the four babies were born. It revisited them at ages seven and 14, and now the latest installment meets the cohort as they turn 21. Whanau is the brain-child of veteran TV producer Kay Ellmers, who was fed-up with the negative representation of Maori young people in mainstream media. She speaks to Kathryn along with one of the rangitahi featured in the series - Pianika Ormsby (Ngati Ranginui,Ngapuhi, Ngati Kahungunu).

Sophie Handford reviews The Climate Book created by Greta Thunberg, published by Penguin Random House.

Westport is still recovering from disastrous floods which hit in July last year, when about half the town's population of 4,000 was evacuated and 500 homes damaged. More torrential rain in February taxed the town's infrastructure too. The new Buller Health Centre, to replace Buller Hospital, is being built more than a metre above ground level to safeguard against flooding. Most new builds in Westport must now be high enough to withstand a 100-year flood, plus sea level rise. Kathryn talks with Lee Scanlon, Chief reporter of Westport news.

It's been an extraordinary year for British politics, churning through three Prime Ministers in a matter of weeks. Boris Johnson stepped down in early July, just three years after leading the Conservative Party to its biggest election victory since 1987. In came Liz Truss, who lasted 45 days before she too resigned and Rishi Sunak filled the breach. The events that led to the resignation of Johnson - and the dysfunction and chaos in the build-up to it - has been chronicled in a new book by Sebastian Payne. He's the Whitehall Editor and columnist for the Financial Times. His first book Broken Heartlands: A Journey Through Labour's Lost England was deemed Political Book of the Year by The Times newspaper. His latest work is The Fall of Boris Johnson: The Full Story.

Five of the eight jurisdictions in Australia are pushing for a national gun register after the murder of 2 police officers in Queensland last week by extremist conspiracy theorists. Foreign Minister Penny Wong has made a pre-Christmas dash to Beijing for the first visit there by an Australian minister in four years, after the Chinese Government invited her to mark the 50th anniversary of Australia-Chinese diplomatic relations. And, Anthony Albanese has confirmed what had become the worst-kept secret in Canberra - that he has appointed former PM Kevin Rudd as Australia's next ambassador to Washington.

A recent survey by Tourism Industry Aotearoa finds hospitality and tourism is short of sixty-five thousand workers. Queues, reduced opening hours and minimum two night stays are on the cards this summer, with hoteliers saying without enough staff, they can't handle more tourists, while in Fiordland there's been a call for hospo workers to come out of retirement. Kathryn discusses the state of play in our playgrounds with Tourism Industry Aotearoa Chief Executive Rebecca Ingram and Chair of the Fiordland Business Association and owner of Shakespeare House B&B in Te Anau, Nathan Benfell.

If you're heading away this summer and looking at booking a hotel or motel - should you use a booking site? An investigation is underway by the Australian department of treasury - requested by Australia's Assistant Competition Minister Andrew Leigh - into hotel booking sites such as booking.com, hotels.com, trivago and wotif. The investigation will assess whether booking sites are in fact keeping prices high. It's a probe that Consumer New Zealand would like to see undertaken here. Kathryn speaks with Jon Duffy, Chief Executive of Consumer New Zealand.

AUT will return to the Employment Relations Authority today as part of its plans to make 170 academic staff redundant. Yesterday, after a legal bid by the union representing teaching staff, the Authority found the University's process for issuing redundancy notices was flawed and breached the collective agreement. It found that volunteers for redundancy should have been called for once specific positions were identified as surplus, but this did not happen. In a letter to staff yesterday AUT's Group Director of People and Culture Beth Bundy, said AUT's view of the findings differs from that of the TEU. She says the university will return to the ERA today to seek clarification and hopes to have that by tomorrow. Kathryn speaks with Lesley Ferkins, Director of AUT's Sports Performance Research Institute and Professor of Sport, Leadership and Governance. She has kept her job in the restructure, but has written an impassioned letter to the Vice Chancellor and leadership team denouncing the redundancy process as lacking in transparency sound leadership values.

With the biggest sporting tournament in the world wrapped up in spectacular fashion, Sam looks at the wash up to an extraordinary FIFA World Cup - the legacy it leaves both on and off the field. But the beautiful game has got ugly across the Tasman, where ugly A-League protests have turned violent.

Rhapsody for a Rock Wren is a 14-minute film about the endangered bird known in te reo Māori as pīwauwau. It was recorded in Mount Aspiring National Park by University of Otago science student Lauren Schaer.