All eyes are on the Reserve Bank which will decide next week whether to cut interest rates for the first time in four years.

The Associate Energy Minister has launched a huge broadside at the big power companies this morning accusing them of profiteering, amid soaring wholesale power prices.  Paddy Gower talks with Margaret Cooney, Chief Operating Officer of Octopus Energy, and a regular critic of the energy system.

Money expert Lisa Dudson joins Paddy to talk insurance: what kind do you need, how much should you insure yourself for, how can you keep premiums under control and what things could get it voided? Lisa Dudson is the owner of Acumen.co.nz. Her advice is of a general nature.

Music 101 host Charlotte Ryan joins Paddy to play a track from American singer-songwriter Bill Callahan, who's released his first album in nine years. She'll also celebrate an iconic album from Jeff Buckley that's 30 years old this month and a new single from Tami Nielson from her Willy Nelson covers album recorded at his ranch. Charlotte Ryan is host of RNZ's Music 101.

A Nelson-based organisation that supports the most vulnerable tamariki and their whanau across the top of the South Island is set to lose almost 40 per cent of its frontlline staff, as Oranga Tamariki reduces its funding. Nelson council is investigating options for the development of a new library, civic centre and community hub. A new experimental vineyard in Marlborough has been established to allow for more research into wine production - by controlling the environment in which grape vines are grown. And the discovery of a water dragon in the wild in the Tasman district comes with fears over invasive species.

Louise Ward of Wardini Books reviews Awatea's Secret by Fraser Smith published by Huia.

Dr Lucy Foulkes is an academic psychologist at the University of Oxford, and her new book draws on decades of research to reveal why teens behave they way they do.

Australia has upped it's terror threat, with ASIO chief Mike Burgess renewing a all for politicians to watch their words. The threat level has been raised from from possible to probable. 16 Aussie athletes have tested positive for Covid at the Paris Olympics. And the Reserve Bank of Australia says interest rate cuts are still six months away. It has kept interest rates on hold at 4.35 per cent. Annika Smethurst is political editor at The Age.

The 50 years between 1920 and 1970 were full of societal and political upheaval. Now a new exhibition at Toi o Tamaki, Auckland Art Gallery, seeks to explore the role women artists had at shaping the art of the time.

An Australian defence and foreign policy expert is cautioning New Zealand against joining AUKUS Pillar Two.