Saturday Morning

7:10 The race for the White House

It's been a rollercoaster campaign, not least when president Joe Biden stepped aside - and next week, Americans will decide. 

Will it be current Vice President and democrat candidate Kamala Harris? Or, is former president, Republican Donald Trump going to make a comeback for a second term?

Associated Press correspondent and someone who's spent a lot of time covering US politics, Phillip Crowther, talks about what this campaign has been like.

 

7:20 Protecting biological diversity

The UN Convention on Biological Diversity, known as COP16, has just wrapped up.

Governments and other interested parties have reaffirmed the commitment made two years ago - to protect a third of the planet for nature by 2030.

In order to do so, 23 targets were agreed to - including conserving at least 30 percent of land and oceans.

But less than a week out from the global hui, the vast majority - 80 percent of countries, including New Zealand, hadn't submitted their plans on how to reach those targets.

Manu Caddie, who is part of the Indigenous Caucus, representing the Aotearoa Indigenous Rights Trust, which is an organisation established more than 20 years ago to support Māori participation in multilateral forums, talks to Mihi about why having a plan is so important.

 

7:32 The right to jury trials

The number of criminal trials held in front of a jury could be reduced in a bid to speed-up the judicial system and save money.

Instead more cases will be heard by a judge alone - if a government proposal goes through aimed at reducing delays in the court system.

Feedback on the government's plan to restrict the right to jury trial closed on Thursday. 

Henry Benson-Pope is a former Crown Prosecutor, and lectures in Law at the University of Otago.

He says the right to jury trials is recognised as central to our criminal justice system, and is concerned about the proposed restrictions - which he says aren't necessarily as the answer to delays.

 

7:42 The end of Flybuys

The country's longest-running rewards scheme is coming to an end.

Since yesterday, members can no longer collect any new points on Flybuys - but you can still redeem the ones you have.

To discuss this, and other reward schemes, we are joined by money correspondent Susan Edmunds.

 

7:50 Learning to play

Playing is an essential part of childhood.

But in the era of devices and screen time - are kids, or rather their parents, forgetting to just let tamariki play?

Scott MacKenzie is the Play Manager at Sport New Zealand and talks about what can or should we be doing about it.

 

8:10 The inexact science of polling

Americans go to the polls on the 5th of November to pick Kamala Harris or Donald Trump as their next president.

In the lead up to the vote hundreds of thousands of phone calls are made by pollsters. It is an inexact science and yet the results can guide the party campaigners and potentially, voters too.

One of the most accurate polls in America comes out of Siena College in New York. Director Don Levy shares his predictions for the upcoming election, and explains how the polls actually work.

 

8:30 Acing adventure racing

Nathan Fa'avae and Sophie Hart are part of New Zealand's most successful adventure racing team, combining kayaking, swimming, rafting, abseiling, and mountain biking and much, much, more. 

As Team Avaya (formerly Seagate), they have won numerous world championships, before Nathan announced his retirement from adventure racing last year.

He then teamed up with Sophie to tackle the Yukon 1000 this year and took first place, with the second fastest time ever recorded.  At 1,000 miles, from Canada to the Arctic Circle, it's the world's longest, and considered the toughest paddle race.

The duo talk to Susie about some of the incredible experiences adventure racing has given them.

 

9:10 Climate vs Power - the carbon footprint of geopolitics

One of the world's leading scholars of geopolitics, Gerard Toal examines how interstate rivalry and competition so often undermine efforts to address climate change.

Oceans Rise Empires Fall: Why Geopolitics Hastens Climate Catastrophe explores why conflicts like the war in Ukraine increase fossil fuel production even when states acknowledge that global warming will produce dire consequences. 

 

9:40 Tsunami Awareness

Volcanologist and GNS principal scientist Graham Leonard shares everything you need to know about tsunamis ahead of the upcoming UN World Tsunami Awareness Day.

 

10:05 Patrick Ness: Teenage talk is filthy

Double Carnegie medal-winning author Patrick Ness is one of the world's most loved young adult writers. He won the Carnegie Medal for Monsters of Men in 2011, and in 2012 he won for A Monster Calls - said to be one of the most powerful novels about loss ever written. 

Patrick's latest book is his first for junior readers. Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody is a reptilian take on surviving school.

All heart and never one to shy away, Patrick is touring Australia and New Zealand this month discussing, among other things, writing masculinity, LGBTQIA+ stories and adapting his work into Hollywood films. He's speaking at Verb Readers and Writer Festival and the Auckland Writers Festival.

 

10:35 Tairāwhiti: Pine, Profit and the Cyclone 

The effects of Cyclone Gabrielle are still being felt around Te Tai Rāwhiti. The impact forestry has had on the environment, economy and the people on the East Coast is more apparent than ever. 

The torrential rain at the start of 2022 saw the leftovers from forestry harvests, slash, descending down rivers, washing away bridges, dislocating and isolating communities along the coast in its path.

The first place to see the sun in Aotearoa is also an early adopter of farming and forestry. In Tairāwhiti: Pine, Profit and the Cyclone Aaron Smale travels the coast to reveal a long history of colonial and environmental exploitation.

 

11:05 Michael Belgrave: telling the whole history

From early Polynesian navigators to missionaries, colonists and migrants, Massey University historian Professor Michael Belgrave has published the first major national history of Aoteaora New Zealand in 20 years. 

Becoming Aotearoa: A New History of New Zealand is a big and bold book taking March 2019 as the starting point to examine how tangata whenua and migrants have together built an open, liberal society based on a series of social contracts.  Frayed though they may sometimes be, Belgrave tells Mihi and Susie these contracts have created a country that is distinct.

 

11:40 Activism through art: Diane Prince

Activist and artist Diane Prince is a woman of many talents.  She is a painter, weaver, installation artist, set designer and educator.

As a young woman, Diane was a note taker at the occupation of Takaparawhau/Bastion Point, an experience that set her on a path weaving activism and advocacy into her work.

Her 1995 piece Flagging the Future: Te Kiritangata - The Last Palisade encouraged visitors to stand on the New Zealand flag. A selection of her work opens in an exhibition in her honour at Pātaka Art + Museum.

 

Books on today's show

Becoming Aotearoa: A New History of New Zealand
By Michael Belgrave
Published by Massey University Press

Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody
By Patrick Ness
Published by Walker Books

Oceans Rise Empires Fall: Why Geopolitics Hastens Climate Catastrophe
By Gerard Toal
Published by Oxford University Press

Tairāwhiti: Pine, Profit and the Cyclone
By Aaron Smale 
Published by Bridget Williams Books