Nine To Noon for Monday 10 February 2025

09:05 Emergency departments and GPs - what the health frontline wants from the new minister  

It's less than a month since Simeon Brown was announced as the new Minister of Health, replacing Shane Reti after little more than a year. The Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon said he wanted a "ruthless focus on execution in health." and was looking to Simeon Brown due to his record for delivering. Health NZ is running under a  Commissioner after the Board was sacked and  in the latest upheaval the CEO Margie Apa has stepped down early. Under the previous Minister, Health NZ has been trying  to contain a budget blowout and at the end of last year, Shane Reti said they'd reduced the deficit for 2024/25.  But it still sits at $1.1 billion down from a previously predicted $1.76 billion and further cost savings are likely. Progress on the government's five health targets is slow and critics continue to point to underfunding. In emergency departments, complaints about  waiting times and staffing crises continue and GPs in some areas struggle to take on new patients. To get a sense of what those on the frontline are hoping for from the new Minister, Kathryn speaks to Dr Michael Connelly, an emergency doctor and the New Zealand  Deputy Chair of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and the President of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners  Dr Samantha Murton

09:30 Climatologist Alan Robock on why he doubts we can geoengineer our way out of a climate crisis

Amid the "pick your apocalypse" options the world faces right now - climate change and nuclear annihilation loom pretty high. Just two weeks ago the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock forward by a second, to make it 89 seconds to midnight. Someone who knows an awful lot about what a catastrophic nuclear conflict would result in is Alan Robock, one of the world's leading experts on the climatic effects of a nuclear conflict. He's also an expert in geoengineering - that's a broad term for interventions to combat the effects of climate change - and something he's expressed concerns about. He's in New Zealand and giving a talk tonight at Victoria University of Wellington on the human toll of nuclear winter.

09:45 Foreign correspondent Seamus Kearney

Trump has reportedly spoken to Putin about Ukraine war, Baltic nations turn off connection to Russian electricity grid and far-right parties in Europe nail colours to Trump's mast.

10:05 Gavin McInnes: from Vice to Proud Boys   

Gavin McInnes' was one of the founders of the boundary-pushing magazine Vice in the 90s. But fast forward a couple of decades and he is starting and leading the Proud Boys - a far-right, neo-fascist group that played a key role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The question of what led to that drastic swing is at the heart of Thomas Morton's documentary It's Not Funny Anymore: Vice to Proud Boys. Thomas was a cub journalist at Vice and looked up to McInnes and others at the magazine popular with millennials for its focus on underground societies. He followed McInnes's life after Vice and has interviewed family and friends of the man he calls his first mentor in writing and journalism. The film builds up to a showdown interview between the two at the end as Thomas tries to understand why his big brother figure became so extreme.

10:35 Book review: Three of the best from 2024

Stella Chrysostomou of Volume Books reviews three of her favourite books from last year: Gliff by Ali Smith, published by Hamish Hamilton, Brown Bird by Jane Arthur, published by Puffin, Spent Light by Lara Pawson, published by CB Editions.

10:45 Around the motu: Georgina Campbell in Wellington

Tory Whanau aligns herself more closely with Green Party in bid for a second term, a special care unit for sick babies at former Te Awakairangi Birthing Centre in Lower Hutt is quietly shelved, and Wellington city property valuations plummet 24%, no suburb is left unscathed.

Georgina Campbell is a NZ Herald Wellington issues reporter.

11:05 Political commentators Brigitte Morten and Dale Husband

Brigitte Morten is a director with public and commercial law firm Franks Ogilvie and a former senior ministerial advisor for the previous National-led government, a National Party member and currently volunteering for the party's deputy leader, Nicola Willis.

Dale Husband is a long time broadcaster and Radio Waatea presenter hosting a Maori focused current affairs programme.

11:30 Rowan Bishop on how a simple relish can transform a meal

Rowan Bishop has been a food writer for over thirty years and has just released a new edition of one of her most popular books. She's based in Wanaka and written six books, all with a strong emphasis on vegetarian food. Her latest book Relish is twice as big as her previous one and includes recipes for chutneys, relishes and pickles from all around the globe. There's everything from kumara chutney and eggplant kasundi pickle to burnt orange and bourbon marmalade. She joins Kathryn to talk about her favourites and why preserving produce and injecting it into mealtimes has made a comeback with such...relish.

11:45 Off the beaten track with Kennedy Warne

Kennedy talks about the legislation that designates Taranaki a legal person, the 43rd running of the iconic Coast to Coast adventure race and it's time to vote on the Bug of the Year! There are a diverse range of critters to back this year, from the pesky native blue blowfly to the bizarre giraffe weevil to the exquisite (in name and appearance) Olearia owlet moth.