Our oceans are important for our health, wealth, social life and sense of identity in Aotearoa New Zealand. They are also under serious threat from a range of factors including pollution, overfishing and ocean warming. AUT researchers Dr Rebecca Jarvis and Dr Tim Young believe there’s a lack of direction in our policy and research approaches to safeguarding our marine environment. They have recently conducted a ‘horizon scan’: a survey of Aotearoa’s marine science community, to identify key areas where more research is needed. They talk with The Policy Observatory’s Keri Mills about the results.

The climate is changing, whether we like it or not. Our remaining choices are around how much we can limit this change, and what we can do to adapt. A new book A Careful Revolution: Towards a Low-Emissions Future, edited by David Hall and published by Bridget Williams Books, tackles these questions. This podcast is an edited recording of a kōrero between two contributors to the book: Maria Bargh and David Hall, at the book’s Auckland book launch in July. They discuss how a low-emissions revolution can be careful, and tika, and how well we are doing in Aotearoa so far.

Everyone has an interest in our fresh water. Those interests often conflict with each other, making water governance a difficult area. Dr Elizabeth Eppel is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. She talks with Keri Mills about the challenges of water governance and one of Aotearoa’s innovative attempts at collaborative decision-making in this area: the Land and Water Forum.

Green hydrogen is hydrogen generated from renewable electricity. It can be stored and shipped, and could be an export industry for Aotearoa New Zealand as well as a way to decarbonise local fossil fuel uses that are particularly difficult to eliminate. Kathy Errington, Executive Director of the Helen Clark Foundation, speaks with the Policy Observatory’s Keri Mills about the potential of green hydrogen in this country.

Aotearoa New Zealand has pristine mountain rivers and lakes, but downstream in the lowlands our rivers are some of the most polluted in the world. Nutrients, sediment and human pathogens are pouring from farms into waterways, causing damage to ecosystems and threatening human health. Dr Mike Joy speaks with the Policy Observatory’s Keri Mills on the nature of the crisis in our lowland freshwater ecosystems, its historical and political causes, and the policy changes that are needed to improve the situation.

In recent years fierce debates surrounding a housing crisis has brought attention to the oft-ignored societal issue of homelessness in Aotearoa New Zealand. However, homelessness is a complex issue that is about much more than just having access to four walls and a roof. Dr Shiloh Groot, Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology at the University of Auckland, has been researching homelessness for over a decade, and advocates for a more humanistic approach to understanding and responding to homelessness. Shiloh speaks with The Policy Observatory’s Keri Mills.

Aotearoa New Zealand has one of the world’s highest incarceration rates. Māori are more likely to get arrested than Pākehā, once arrested more likely to get prosecuted, once prosecuted more likely to get locked up. The majority of our people in prison are poor, and a sharply increasing number of imprisoned people are Māori women. What are the causes of the gross inequalities in our criminal justice system, and what should we do about them? Professor Tracey McIntosh of the University of Auckland has studied these issues for many years and she discusses her thinking with The Policy Observatory’s Keri Mills.

What do New Zealanders think about inequality? That’s the question driving the recent Marsden-funded research of AUT’s Dr. Peter Skilling. This project looked at what levels of income inequality New Zealanders think are reasonable, and investigated the dynamics of conversations about inequality. He talks with The Policy Observatory’s Keri Mills about the results of his research.

What are the problems caused by economic inequality in Aotearoa, and what can we do about it? Max Rashbrooke has written and edited books on wealth, inequality and the role of government, and he talks to The Policy Observatory’s Keri Mills about the state of inequality in Aotearoa today, and where he thinks we should go from here.