09:05 Auckland mayor on opening bus lanes to trucks
Mainfreight has called on Kiwirail and Auckland Transport to do more to help save on diesel, as fuel stocks continue to decline because of the conflict in the Middle East. Mainfreight chief executive Don Braid said the company is deeply concerned about the diesel situation. While the Government has regularly consulted his and other key companies affected, previous approaches to Kiwirail to increase capacity and take more freight had been snubbed, he says. But he also said Auckland Transport had a role to play – by offering up bus lanes to trucks so they don’t have to idle in traffic as much. Don Braid said Mainfreight approached Auckland Transport many years ago asking to open the bus lanes to couriers and trucks, that would give way to buses. But he said that idea had been batted away. Auckland mayor Wayne Brown responds.
Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
09:15 Furnished homes for those fleeing family violence
An Auckland charity that furnishes houses throughout Auckland for people escaping family violence has just completed its one thousandth home. The founder of Woven Earth says the milestone is bittersweet, highlighting significant demand, while also representing thousands of women and children helped in the past six years. Kerryn Thrupp, herself a survivor, says leaving a violent situation is difficult but moving out of the transition period to re-establish life is also a significant challenge.
Photo: Supplied
09:35 Auckland museum’s online databases set for overhaul
Auckland museum is upgrading two of the country’s most valuable websites of recorded history – as it seeks to encourage more people to contribute to its online databases. The online cenotaph is a military database which holds 270,000 records, and the online collections website holds digitised versions of 1 million of the 6 million items that the museum is in possession of. Museum chief executive David Reeves says as online records have grown and are expected to grow, the upgrade of the websites, with the help of a lotteries grant, is significant.
The Grand Foyer at Auckland Museum
Photo: Supplied via Local Democracy Reporting
09:45 Asia correspondent Edward White
The shock from the Iran war continues to worsen in the Asia region, as well as rising concern about the relocation of American military resources. Important regional elections in India are underway in an informal mid-term for PM Narendra Modi and Vietnam’s leader has consolidated power.
Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
10:05 Rakiura takes centre stage in a new mystery novel staring New Zealand’s southernmost librarian
It’s a long way from New York City to Rakiura Stewart Island, but that’s the path – albeit not directly – my next guest has taken. Originally from the United States, Jessica Howland Kany has called Rakiura home for more than two decades after visiting and falling in love with the island, and a local. She’s worked at the library, post office, pub and for her fisher husband. A writer by trade, she was the editor of the Stewart Island News, and has written for a variety of other publications. She’s also just published her second novel, Parrot Heaven. Like her debut fiction A Runner’s Guide to Rakiura – it’s set on Stewart Island.
Photo: Jessica Howland Kany
10:30 How art in health centre waiting rooms can help alleviate anxiety
The Melvin Day still life is from 1956.
Photo: Supplied by Urban Art Foundation
Catching a bus, boarding a plane, walking down the street, and now, sitting in the doctors’ waiting room. You may have seen New Zealand artists’ work digitised and published around cities via billboards and televisions. The Urban Art Foundation, is the organisation behind that. The Foundation aims to expose as many people as it can to art, by placing it among city landscapes, where people can view for free. And now the latest collaboration with Health TV will see 160 health waiting rooms nationwide have access to the same art. Urban Art founder and creative director Andrew Hagen says the partnership helps reach communities in a new way, offering a few moments of beauty and stillness for what might be an anxious time.
The John Gully painting is from 1881 and called In the Southern Alps.
Photo: Supplied by Urban Art Foundation
10:35 Book review : Party Boy by Breton Dukes
Photo: Te Herenga Waka University Press
Elizabeth Heritage reviews Party Boy by Breton Dukes, published by Te Herenga Waka University Press.
10:45 Around the motu:
11:05 Music reviewer Grant Smithies
New music with Grant Smithies: Stereolab is returning to Aotearoa in June for its first visit in seven years, originally formed as The Screaming Pope in Auckland 1983, Francis Sect return with their long-lost single, and the first time vinyl reissue of one of the true gems from Britain’s On-U Sound catalogue, 1992’s ‘Short and Sweet’ by Little Annie.
Photo: Supplied
11:25 Friday funnies: Te Radar and Michele A’Court
Our comedians round out the week with some funny stories from the past week.
Photo: BebeBirdParrot
11:45 Sports Editor Dana Johannsen
Moana Pasifika and Super Rugby, The Black Ferns will face Canada for the first time since the World Cup semifinal, and Charlisse Leger-Walker becomes the second New Zealander drafted to the WNBA.
In 2018, Leger-Walker became the youngest player to play for the Tall Ferns, when she debuted as a 16-year-old at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
Photo: Supplied / Charlisse Leger-Walker