Nine To Noon

A legal case is being brought against the government for failing to use laws that would protect thousands of marine animals. The landmark legal proceedings have been filed today by the Environmental Law Initiative - a non-profit which aims to ensure the effective protection of natural resources. The respondents in the case are the Minister of Conservation, the Attorney General, and the Directors General of the Department of Conservation and Ministry for Primary Industries. The Environmental Law Initiative alleges that some aspects of the government's management of protected species may be unlawful, including the way reporting on bycatch is conducted, and the way some offences connected to bycatch are investigated and prosecuted. A 2019 report by the Ministry for the Environment found found 22 percent of all assessed marine mammals, 90 percent of all seabirds and 80 percent of shore birds are threatened or at risk of extinction. Kathryn Ryan speaks with Ingrid O'Sullivan, Environmental Law Initiative's Senior Policy Advisor for Oceans and Coasts.

Engaging with a baby in their first three years of life can help set them up with communication skills, says speech-language therapist Emma Quigan. Once you trust that very young children are learning from every interaction, you see time spent with them as a significant opportunity, she tells Kathryn Ryan.

The likely changes to abortion law in the US are making a lot of people nervous, as well as tech giants...Meta (formerly Facebook) has banned its staff from talking about it at work. The struggle to retain good tech staff is real, and one of the battle lines may be over working from home flexibility...and could you tell if someone's holiday snap is a deepfake?

Airini Beautrais reviews Home Theatre by Anthony Lapwood, published by Te Herenga Waka University Press .

Professor Lucy Easthope is one of the world's foremost disaster planners. Her first major job in emergency planning was responding to 9/11 and since then, her career has covered almost every major disaster; the Boxing Day tsunami, the London bombings, the Christchurch earthquakes, the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 shot down over Ukraine, the Grenfell Tower fire, Covid-19 and many more. It's her job to help get the bodies identified, repatriate survivors, return personal effects, look after the bereaved, and advise governments for the future. She speaks to Kathryn about her memoir, When the Dust Settles: Stories of Love, Loss and Hope from an Expert in Disaster.

The long-awaited Sue Gray report into the Partygate scandal has been released overnight, detailing a culture of rule breaking at Downing Street at the height of lockdown - but it appears to let Boris Johnson off the hook, and he's ruled out resigning. Meanwhile Chancellor Rishi Sunak is set to unveil how the government will help struggling families through the cost of living crisis...including a windfall tax on oil and gas giants to help pay for a package of measures.

New research brings the possibility of a simple blood test to detect Alzheimers early a step closer. Currently there's no easy way of catching the disease early. But the University of Otago's just published study in Alzheimer's & Dementia, showing levels of small molecules found in blood plasma, called microRNA, change dynamically as the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease accelerate. This means researchers can use blood as a window into the brain, to find biomarkers to help diagnose Alzheimer's disease early, long before symptoms appear. More than 70,000 New Zealanders are affected by Alzheimer's disease. This is predicted to more than double by 2050, at a cost of more than $1.7 billion a year. Associate Professor Joanna Williams, from the University of Otago's Department of Anatomy and the Otago Brain Health Research Centre is the study's team leader and speaks with Kathryn Ryan.

Tough times ahead for mortgage holders as interest rates rise.The central bank hiked the official cash rate by half a percent to 2 percent yesterday, the highest since 2016. The Reserve Bank wants to tackle inflation, which is at a 30 year high, driven by higher costs for food, housing and fuel. The bank's also signalled the rate will need to climb to about 3.4% by the end of this year, peaking at 3.9% from June next year. So with the soaring cost of living, higher interest repayments, and falling house values, what sort of economic ride are we in for? Kathryn discusses with Head of Research for the BNZ, Stephen Toplis.

Employment specialist Charles McGuinness joins Kathryn to talk about some of the things to look for before you sign a contract with a new employer, and what businesses need to consider when drawing one up.

Paul Caffyn is an absolute legend of sea kayaking. His first big trip was in 1977 when he circumnavigated the South Island over four months. That was just the start. Over the coming years he circumnavigated the North Island, Britain, Australia (that took a whole year) , Japan, Alaska, New Caledonia and voyaged from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to and around the island of Phuket in Thailand. He's notched up over 40,000 miles in his single West Greenland style kayaks , seeing some of the most remote places in the world from the vantage point of the sea. He's written four different books on his various expeditions, and in 2011 was made an officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to sea kayaking and water safety. When he's not on the water, he lives on the West Coast, from where he chats to Kathryn Ryan.