Nine To Noon for Thursday 13 March 2025

09:05 Government procurement changes 'backward'

Plans to scrap the requirement for new government buildings to reach a five star sustainability rating are retrograde and will see a race to the bottom according to the Green Building Council. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced a raft of rules to be scrapped  - including the requirement to pay the living wage to cleaning, security, and catering services to government agencies. She says the changes will make it easier for New Zealand businesses to access government contracts collectively worth $50b a year. Under the proposals,  new non-residential government buildings will not have to be built to a five-star rating standard, government agencies will not have to purchase recyclable office supplies, and nor will agencies be required to buy EV or Hybrid vehicles. Andrew Eagles is the Chief Executive of the Green Building Council. Kathryn also speaks with Canterbury sheep farmer, Angela Blair whose petition calling for Government buildings to be fitted out exclusively with wool carpets got 11,000 signatures. She's worried the changes will see cheap synthetic imported carpets favoured instead of wool.

09:20 One year since funding scrapped for section 27 reports 

Defence lawyers say they are doing what they can, to give their clients the best chance of a fair sentence following cuts to funding for background and cultural reports, but it is taking its toll. Under Section 27 of the Sentencing Act an offender can ask the court to hear their background, the way that background may have related to the offence, any efforts to resolve the offending and what further support could be available to help prevent further offending. The wording of the Act is that the court "hears" this information, but in reality this was mostly provided as a written report, penned by a professional who charges for it, and is paid via legal aid. The National Party had campaigned on ending funding for the reports, saying about 2500 were produced during 2023 at a cost of $7.5 million. The party said too much money was being spent on the reports, fuelling a "cottage industry" that was producing reports which lead to inappropriate sentence discounts. When National was elected they fulfilled that campaign promise and removed the ability for reports to be funded via legal aid in March last year. Emma Priest has more than 20 years' experience in criminal law, working as both a Crown prosecutor and a defence lawyer. She acts for defendants facing serious charges in the criminal courts including those on Legal Aid who have often come from backgrounds of poverty, deprivation and disadvantage.

09:35 New Zealand holds on to bottom trawling rights in the South Pacific

For the second year in a row New Zealand has blocked an Australian-backed proposal to restrict bottom trawling in the South Pacific, and has faced criticism from countries including the United States and Australia for doing so. The proposal sought to protect 70 percent of high biodiversity areas, such as seamounts,  within bottom trawling areas, leaving 30 percent. open to the industry. The 70 percent ban was originally proposed by New Zealand under the previous Government. However, New Zealand then back-tracked on its own proposal, after the Government changed, and the proposal was picked up by Australia at last month's South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation meeting in Chile. Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says he is committed to "looking after our own people, looking after jobs and opportunities for economic development to benefit New Zealand", and that "NZ will no longer tolerate being pushed around in the Pacific". Lynda Goldsworthy has attended South Pacific regional fisheries meetings as an academic advisor on the Australian delegation for the past 5 years. She says New Zealand's commitment to bottom trawling means Australia must be prepared to have New Zealand as an opponent rather than ally when it comes to fisheries policy. 

09:45 UK: Disabled welfare cuts, Russian diplomat expelled, tanker crash eco worries 

UK correspondent Dan Bloom joins Kathryn to look at how Labour MPs are wrestling with a proposal to slash benefits for the disabled, in order to avoid a bill for  £70 billion by the end of the decade. He'll also talk about Sir Keir Starmer's role in pushing for a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia, as the UK looks to expel a Russian diplomat in a retaliatory action for a similar move earlier this week against British diplomats in Moscow. UK officials insist there was no foul play, but have arrested the Russian captain of a cargo ship that crashed into an oil tanker in the North Sea. And there's trouble in the Reform ranks.

Dan Bloom is political editor of Politico London Playbook

10:05 Edward Wong: tracing China's history through his father's story

As Edward Wong grew up in America, the only uniform he ever saw his father in was the one he wore to the restaurant he worked in.There was little talk about his parents' early years in China and Hong Kong. It was only when Edward became the New York Times correspondent in Beijing that he began to dig more into his father's life before the US. He discovered that he had been a zealous young communist under Mao, and had served in the People's Liberation Army for a decade on China's remotest frontiers. Ultimately Edward Wong's father became disillusioned with the communist party and hatched a plan to escape, reaching the Washington DC area in 1967.  Edward Wong's book is called At The Edge of Empire: A Family's Reckoning with China. He is a diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times, has been a war correspondent in Iraq,  and the Times' Beijing bureau chief. He will be appearing in-conversation with Anna Fifield at the Auckland Writers Festival 13 - 18 May.

10:35 Book review: You Are Here by Whiti Hereaka and Peata Larkin 

Stella Chrysostomou of Volume Books reviews You Are Here by Whiti Hereaka and Peata Larkin published by Massey University Press

10:45 Around the motu: John Freer covering the Coromandel Peninsula

John discusses the latest events in the Coromandel Peninsula including the 25th anniversary of the Beach Hop, the Kubota Billfish Classic, the council's latest options for coastal protection, and a new environmental and marine education centre has been opened by Hillary Outdoors.

John Freer is a CFM local news reporter and former Mayoral Candidate for the Thames Coromandel District Council.

10:55 Prime Minister offers shelter from global storm at international investor summit. 

The government's high profile international investment summit - aimed at growing New Zealand's future - is now underway in Auckland. Companies, banks, and asset managers have been invited to the gathering as the government tries to attract infrastructure funding. Opening the session, the Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, told investors from 15 countries that New Zealand is a place where they can shelter from the global storm. Kathryn speaks to RNZ     political reporter, Giles Dexter, who is at the summit

11:05 Tech: Can the US switch off Europe's weapons? Android back-door for scammers

Technology journalist Bill Bennett looks at how much control the US has over a number of weapons systems used across Europe. A million Android devices like streaming boxes, tablets and after-sale car infotainment systems are infected with malware, according to new research. Another China-made AI product, Manus, has been launched - what can it do that other AI tools can't? And it's goodbye to Skype...

Bill Bennett is an Auckland-based technology journalist

11:25 My child has a lisp: should I be worried?

Wellington speech and language therapist Christian Wright talks about children and lisps. What is a lisp, and when should a parent become concerned?

11:45 Screentime: Dope Thief, Flow, Mickey 17

Film and television reviewer Chris Schulz joins Kathryn to talk about Dope Thief (Apple TV+), where two long-term friends pose as DEA agents to rob a house in the countryside but get much more than they bargained for. Flow (rental) is the Latvian animated film about a cat's survival adventures that netted an Oscar. And Mickey 17 (in theatres) is a black comedy from Oscar-winning Parasite director Bong Joon-ho starring Robert Pattinson as a man on a space mission who keeps dying and being brought back to life.