Afternoons for Tuesday 13 May 2025

1:10 Free programme offers support to families waiting on specialist autism care support

With delays of up to a year for specialist support for children with autism, a free programme has helped hundreds of families bridge the gap while they wait.

Let's Play is aimed at families with pre-schoolers - teaching parents and caregivers to connect with their child through play and prepare them for school. If you are interested in a referral fill in this form.  

Let's Play parent coach Sara-May Mallett, and Brendan Withy, who's dad to four-and-a-half-year-old Sid spoke to Jesse.

1:20 Government's move towards protecting a herd of Fiordland Wapiti causes controversy 

Forest and Bird has criticised the move to protect a herd of wapiti deer - or North American elk, in Fiordland National Park but ecologist Cam Speedy says it's the right move.

1:35 In defence of the humble moth

The humble moth often gets a bad rap compared to its more glamorous relative, the butterfly.

But moths are actually an important part of our ecosystem.

And Wairarapa local Jim O'Malley thinks so too - he's part of the region's first ever moth survey, which has revealed a surprising wealth of biodiversity, as well as the discovery of a very rare moth.

1:45 Tech Tuesday

Time Batt joins Jesse with his thoughts on the world in tech this week. Today Tim discusses Duolingo's move to an AI first strategy replacing human contractors with AI. He also looks at the impending doomsday for Windows 10 users. 

2:10 Book Critic: new (ish) books for children

This month’s theme does what it says on the tin!

All these books have been published in the last year and are definitely worth talking about according to Catherine Ross, the Director of Library at Auckland Grammar School. More details can be found on Catherine's blog.

For Ages 10-11

The Bletchley Riddle

By Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin

Published in October 2024

For Ages 11/12+

A Language of Dragons

By S.F. Williamson

Published January 2025

For Ages 12+

Sunrise on the Reaping

By Suzanne Collins

Published in March 2025

All Better Now

By Neal Shusterman

Published in February 2025

For Ages 13/14+

By Any Other Name

By Jodie Picoult

Published in August 2024

2:20 Update on Oz with Brad Foster

Brad has the latest from the Lucky Country: a new report into the urgent need for more social housing in Victoria; some of the early findings in the inquest into the Bondi shopping center stabbings a year ago and the continuing mushroom poisoning trial. 

2:30 Music feature: memorable songs from forgettable movies

We all know them: the movie that is completely unmemorable yet has an absolute banger of a song on the soundtrack. It's so good that quite often it saves the movie.  

Music Journalist Yadana Saw has brought a basket of cracker tunes from rubbish movies and she's here to share them with you and Jesse. 

3:10 Feature interview: the film exploring the decline in community

Join a club and save democracy. 30 years ago, political scientist Robert Putnam published research explaining that people were becoming increasingly disconnected from each other and disengaged with their communities because they stopped joining clubs, going to church or participating in school groups.    

Pete Davis was one of Putnam's students.  His sister Rebecca was a producer at NBC news. Together they tracked Putnam down and put together a documentary about the decline in community and connection called Join or Die.
 

3:30 Thrift

A money saving experiment to test all the spending triggers we learnt about in last week episode.

Katy Gosset and our own Marama T-Pole embark on a 20-dollar challenge.

3:45 The pre-Panel

Wallace Chapman and producer Tom Riste-Smith preview tonight's instalment of The Panel.