Full Show Podcast: 03 May 2026

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB. Welcome to the Sunday Session with
Francesca Rudkin and Wiggles for the best.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Selection of great reeds used Talks EDB.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Good morning, Welcome to the Sunday Session on the third
of May. How did we get to May? It's okay,
I know you don't need to explain. I'm Frochester ruking
with you until mid day. It is seven past nine.
Coming up on the show today, Arter ten, I'm joined
by Karen Howe. Karen is the best selling author and
award winning reporter covering the impacts of artificial intelligence on society.

(00:47):
So she was the first journalist to profile Open AI,
and she wrote a book it's called Empire of AI
about the company and its global implications. She joins me
for a chat about big Tech AI ahead of her
visit to New Zealand for the Auckland Writers Festival. Now,
this week I sat down and watched a new Netflix
film called Apex and if you take a look at
the flora and fauna in this action film, it was

(01:10):
clear that parts of it were shot in Zealand. So
I started doing a little bit of investigating and I
discovered it was not just our amazing cruise and scenery
which contributed to this film, but our very own Olympic
silver medallist, Luke Jones. So Luca is the kayaking stunt
double in the film for Charlie thereon, So after eleven
we're going to talk to Luca about the movie business,
working with Charlie and life after being a competitive athlete.

(01:32):
And of course, as always you're most welcome to text
anytime throughout the morning. On ninety two ninety.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Two the Sunday session.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
So last week I started my editorial with well, it
was a rather chaotic, eventful week in politics, wasn't it,
and went on to speak about how I thought it
was a mistake that the Prime Minister had decided to
decline appearing in a weekly spot on TVNZ's Breakfast. But
it appears that chaotic and eventful is likely to be
how we're going to describe the next twenty seven weeks

(02:02):
until the election, if the covalition can hold itself together
through till November. The nonsense and the scheming this week
concluded what could quite possibly have been a leaked story
about embattled TV and Z reporter Mikey Sherman lawyer's letters
flying between media companies keen to report the juicy details,
Winston Peter's releasing emails under an OIA request revealing the

(02:23):
Prime minister's potentially damaging views on the US war against Iran,
and a feisty retaliation by the National Party on New Zealand. First.
You know, all I could think of at the end
of this week was surely both the media and politicians
can do better.

Speaker 4 (02:37):
I get it.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
Everyone is coming out firing on all cylinders. That's what
you do in an election year. National has a new
campaign chair and communications adviser, and I'm sure many National
voters like the new fighting spirit been shown by the Nats.
And after all the Foreign minister, the Foreign Affairs Minister
was out of line this week. But with Winston Peters
stating no, we won't do a deal with Labor or

(02:59):
their Marxist and separates mates, then you'd think that having
ruled out being part of an opposition coalition, there would
be some shared effort to sell this one to voters.
The number of people who said to me this week,
I don't want to vote for any of them was
a bit of a surprise. Civility is often put aside
during an election year, and yet I think it's what
most of us are craving right now. We'd like the

(03:21):
people we have entrusted to run the company country, deack
like grown nuts and get on with the job. Budget
month is going to be tough, and yet all National
and the Coalition have to do is sell this budget.
To sell this budget is to deliver it straight up.
We all know the story. Whatever economic recovery and confidence
we were gaining heading into twenty twenty six has been

(03:42):
wiped out by decisions made elsewhere in the world. It's
not just our story, It's happening everywhere. This week, the
Bank of England warned inflation could hit six point two
percent in the UK by early twenty twenty seven and
food prices could rise by six to seven percent by
the end of the year. And Australia inflation rose to
four points six percent in March, with an expectation it
will peak high with consumer prices now growing at their

(04:03):
fastest pace in two and a half years. No, it's
not the economic recovery story National was hoping to campaign on,
but with little policy or innovation coming from the Labor Party,
there is an opportunity to double down on their fiscally
responsible approach to managing the economy. The revelation of Christopher
Luxon's support for the war wrecking our economy isn't helpful
for him, But what would be more damaging is having

(04:25):
the coalition party leaders calling out each other for poor
judgment over the coming months. Luxon has done a good
job keeping the coalition together, but if they're going to
spend the next six months sabotaging each other rather than
continuing to work on how they can come together on policy,
selling the budget will be the least of National's problems.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
The Sunday Session King to hear your thoughts.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
You're most welcome to text on ninety two ninety two
and coming up in just a moment. David Seymour is
in the studio to talk us through AX immigration policy
released this morning. It is eleven past nine. You're with
News Talks EB.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Sunday with Style The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and
Windles for the best selection of Greg Reeves these talks.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
It is fourteen past nine. ACT has today announced it's
immigration policy. It is a six point plan that welcomes
new migrants, but only if they share New Zealand's values,
and we'll play by the rules to talk us through it.
Act lead to David see Seymour joins me. Now, good morning,
Thank you so much for coming into the studio.

Speaker 5 (05:23):
Good morning, Francesca.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
I'm well done on releasing an immigration policy without referring
to an ethnicity as a meal.

Speaker 5 (05:29):
No. Well, look, this is not about anybody or their identity.
It's about what works for New Zealand and the long term.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
So you can confirm that there isn't will wouldn't be
any targeting of specific ethnicities.

Speaker 5 (05:41):
Of course not. I mean we fight racial discrimination wherever
it rears its head, from whatever direction. Our party is
founded in part on the idea that each of us
have exactly the same basic dignity. We're ninety nine point
nine percent the same DNA in our view. There's been
far too much focus on the other point one percent lately.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
So this policy announcement says it's about immigrant that works
for New Zealand. So what is it about our current
policies that aren't working well?

Speaker 5 (06:12):
Just to go back one step to help answer that
our country has been built on waves of settlement. You know,
some of my ancestors came here seven hundred years ago
on an open boat. Others came in slightly more closed,
better boats, as from Scotland, and everyone every in New
Zealander has a story. But what those waves of settlement
have done is two things. One is that they've built

(06:33):
a Kiwi character that's the envy of the world. I mean,
I've just sound parochial, but whether it's you know, our
troops out there doing peacekeeping, our sports people, our business people,
Kiwis have a reputation that we can fix anything. We
do what we say we're going to do. We're compassionate
and thoughtful people. I think that I'm not just biased.
I think that's true. The second thing they've done is

(06:54):
they've built up an enormous amount of infrastructure. So I
know we frequently point to the problems we have with
infrastructure and the serious I know, but if you just
take a moment, in two hundred years, we've gone from
basically a bunch of fishing villages joined together by canutra
to what we have today, which is a pretty incredible

(07:14):
achievement considering how long and mountainous our country is. With
a very small population. So the question is if it's
not working today. And this is the answer to your question,
are we making sure that we keep that deal? And
when I see some of the electoral fraud that we've
had in South Auckland and the latest local body election,

(07:36):
when I talk to people who are working in healthcare
and education saying, look, the amount of issues that we
have with translation are just making it hard to get
our job done. And then when I look at the
infrastructure challenges we have, the way a population grows by
the size of Dunedin every couple of years, but the
actual Dunedin took one hundred and eighty years to build.

(07:58):
I think there needs to be some rebalancing so it
will always be a country that is built on migration
to some extent, but building up of infrastructure and our
maintenance of the Kiwi character, those I think are unbalanced.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
Right now, you're not necessarily eager to curb emmigration, but
it's about tracking the right people.

Speaker 5 (08:17):
Correct, That's absolutely right. And look, I mean again people
say that they're going to cut down on immigration. I
just look at New Zealand first and labor. You know
they came in in twenty seventeen. New Zealand first said
ten thousand per year. Labour said twenty thousand per year.
When they were elected it was sixty thousand, so you'd think, okay,
they're going to get it down a bit based on

(08:38):
what they campaign on. By the time they closed the
border for COVID, it was eighty thousand. Now those guys
brought in a couple of hundred thousand people, and then
in the midst of COVID they gave the resident visa
twenty twenty one and just said, hey, no questions asked,
you're all residents. That is what we're dealing with. A
huge number of low skilled people that got stranded here

(08:59):
during COVID suddenly became residible.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
So who are the right people?

Speaker 5 (09:02):
I think the people that are the right people, first
of all, are people that are going to sign up
to a set of values. You know, we believe men
and women are equal, we have to speak English, we
believe in free speech. Religions a private matter. So you
have to be prepared to sign up to that basic
Keiwi character that we've built. The second thing is that
you have to be somebody who is a net contributor

(09:23):
to our infrastructure and our social services. And that's why
we're saying, look, and this is an idea that was
in my book that I published almost a decade ago.
There should be a daily fee or levee for infrastructure
for your first couple of years here. So if you
get a temporary visa, not a residence visa, but a
temporary visa, then we would say there's a six dollars

(09:47):
a day levy and that effectively goes into a fund
for infrastructure.

Speaker 3 (09:50):
Okay, that's interesting, So how does that work. Is that
someone who's got a temporary working visa, so they're coming
to a job, so they're immediately starting a job yep,
and they're paying tax and on top of that, they're
going to pay an infrastructure fee exactly.

Speaker 5 (10:04):
And what we calcul that that would generate about eighty
million dollars a year. So you imagine every few years
saying look out of the temporary worker fund. Migrants to
New Zealand have just funded the building of a new
hospital and that reminds me of what our colonial migrant

(10:25):
history was like that people came and people built. I
think we've lost a bit of that and it's led
to some resentment but also genuine infrastructure problem.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
So if you've come, you've got a job, you're working,
you're paying your tax for how many years you're gonna
have to pay tax? And six dollars a day? When's
your contribution?

Speaker 5 (10:41):
Well, well, it's while you're on a temporary migrant visa.
So by the time you've become a permanent resident, let
alone a citizen, you're out of that. But if you're
on a temporary migrant visa, like a skilled workforce visa,
a student visa, whatever, then you're liable to that fee.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
Okay, And do you think that you know a lot
of these people are potentially coming in to work on
low wage jobs. Do you think that will have an
impact on getting the workers, the skilled workers that we need.
Is a similar to what happens in Australia, Say.

Speaker 5 (11:09):
Well, just bear in mind that Australia charges quite a
lot more than us. In fact, most countries do. Most
New Zealand does our visas on a cost recovery basis,
so we basically give people visas for the cost of
processing the visas. Just about every other country, including Australia,
clips of the ticket. What we're proposing with the six
dollars a day. Obviously that depends on what type of

(11:31):
visa and how long you're there and so on, but
basically brings us into line with Australia.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
I find the population policy really fascinating because it's an
interesting problem to try and solve because we've got slow
population growth, we've got record low fertility, we've got a
rapidly aging population. We kind of need young, tax paying
workers to help us deal with the ballooning costs that
we're going to deal with that like superannuation and the

(11:57):
pressure on health. But at the same time you need
to manage the population so that it's not adding to
the pressure, as you say, on infrastructure and health. That's
a really tricky balance.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, to me, is it?

Speaker 5 (12:08):
And balance is the key word here, absolutely right. We
are in a way in a war for a talent.
So we're not going out there saying immigration is going
to stop. We're not saying we're going to slash it.
The reason I gave that example of New Zealand first
and labor, they tried this, they went the opposite direction
because they were faced up to reality. But we do

(12:28):
need to start asking how do we contribute to the
key character how do we pay for infrastructure, how do
we ensure that people aren't wroughting the rules? And another
thing we would fund from this levee is much higher
enforcement because right now there's twenty thousand people out there
who overstarts and we just can't find them.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
And how are they draining on the country at the moment.

Speaker 5 (12:46):
Well, what they're doing is they're showing that you don't
actually have to follow the rules. And once you have
a culture where you say, actually the rules don't matter,
all the people that I've helped over the years have
come to my electorate office saying we're trying to follow
the rules and we've been put in really difficult situations.
I don't believe that it's right to have twenty five

(13:06):
people out there who have just gone around that. And
when you look at some of these cultural problems with
the key we character as I talk about it, that
doesn't include twenty thousand people who are law breakers from.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
The get go.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
So this isn't and there are parts of this policy
which aren't necessarily new, but they are about enforcing the
rules that are already in place, and this is an
example of them. So how do you go about enforcing that.

Speaker 5 (13:28):
So we propose having a unit within Immigration New Zealand
that will be funded in part from this levee, this
infrastructure levy we're talking about. Are they going to do
things like start asking what exactly is the point of
a Domino's being an accredited employer work visa holder, Because

(13:48):
at the moment we've had about two and a half
thousand fast food workers led in as high skilled workers allegedly,
whereas we haven't had anything like that when it comes
to say software engineers, that are supposed to be the
point of it. So it's really just about saying, look,
how do we close the gap between the supposedly very

(14:08):
strict rules that New Zealand has and the reality that
people see every day people that have somehow got through
the system without anything like a high level of skill.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
Why isn't the standard of English required at the moment
good enough?

Speaker 5 (14:23):
Frankly, because I talk to people who work in education,
I talk to people who work in healthcare, and these
are people who are not anti immigrant, you know, the
people who are not out there you know, with any
of that kind of sentiment normally. But they say, look,
I go to work, I do my best and having
to get a translator in for every second patient just
makes it too hard. The inefficiency that we're facing is enormous.

(14:47):
And by the way, these are usually people that are
secondary applicants, so not the primary skilled person, but their
parents or family that have come in that they're just
putting a drain. They're one of the reasons that New
Zealand seems so hard right now, and I think we
have to start being a bit more honest about that.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
David Seymour, thank you so much for coming in on
a Sunday mor. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
The Sunday session.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
Well, Auckland FC fans, how are you feeling after that one?

Speaker 6 (15:15):
Next time?

Speaker 7 (15:17):
Melbourne City seventh penalty there's Nathaniel mcinty and Dan Hall,
who has never scored for all from the FC and
last scored in December of twenty twenty three.

Speaker 8 (15:44):
Highlin semifinal in the most drammatic circle.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
Gosh, listen to that crowd. My producer was in that crowd,
but she wasn't watching. She had to turn her back.
She couldn't cope anyway. Autlond FC through to the A
League semifinals after a thrilling penalty shootout match in their
elimination final against Melbourne City Auckland FCCO Nick Beckett joins me. Now,
good morning, Mack, Good morning, how you doing. How did
you handle that one? Could you watch?

Speaker 9 (16:09):
Well?

Speaker 10 (16:10):
I could watch, but I was very nervous. That just
gave me goosebumps listening to piney it in. It was
a really special night.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
What is going through your head when Vald save that
penalty and Dan Hall is walking up to win.

Speaker 10 (16:23):
The game, Well, he was in the Michael was kept
looking over to his goalkeeping coach kind of just try
and get some direction on which way he should go,
and Jonathan gild who was telling him, kept getting it wrong,
so he was getting I could see he was getting
angry and angry, and I was just kind of going,
come on, come on, this has to end.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
It can't go on forever.

Speaker 10 (16:42):
And then when he stood up and made himself massive
and made that huge save, it was you know, It's
just pure adrenaline runs through the body. It's such a
crazy feeling. I mean, sport is such an incredible thing.
I think football, especially because it's such a low scoring game,
the scarcity of goals and the drama and then to
go through one all and play for full ninety minutes

(17:04):
and then extra time as well, and then go into
penalty shootouts. It was a real emotional rollercoaster, but it's
such an incredible thing that only only sport can actually create.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
Sakai won the toss, which meant the penalty shootout was
in front of the port. Was that important for the players?
Do you think does that make a difference?

Speaker 2 (17:22):
It was massive.

Speaker 10 (17:23):
It was mass We actually talked about it before the game,
not not with the players but with the coaching staff
and I normally pop up and see the port before
the game too, and you know, people were asking me
about it, and as you know, it did come down
to the flip of a coin. That's the rules, and
luckily we won it and could do it in front
of them. But you know, it's interesting because you watched
the Melbourne City players sort of rose to the occasion

(17:45):
as well, and they rarely after they scored their penalties,
they went over to the port and sort of told
them to but you know, kind of did the classic
you know, shush be quiet now. So there's really good
like sort of interaction between fans and players and just
added to the whole drama of the piece.

Speaker 3 (18:01):
So you now go to home and away semi finals
against Adelaide starting at home next Saturday. Last year, the
team won their away leg at the semis, but they
lost at home. What does the team learn from.

Speaker 10 (18:12):
That, Well, you know what it's been. I mean, that
was obviously our first ever time in finals. And I
think there is a there is a saying in sport
that you've got to go there and lose before you
go back and win. And I think that the finals
football is just different.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
And that's a fact.

Speaker 10 (18:28):
You know, knock out everything's there's so much pressure on it,
and there's so much rioting on it. So it's it's,
you know, sort of win or go home. So I
think our as a squad, we took a lot of
learnings from that semi final last year and we'll take
that experience. And and they the other thing is that
they know how much it hurts when you do lose,
So nobody wants to lose. They always you want to

(18:49):
be in that that kind of all the way, that
right to the end. So you know, I was talking
to some of the players last night after the game
and they were saying, right now, we go on and
win it. And that's a real sort of attitude and
belief in the in the squad, and it is going
to be a huge, huge semi final this Saturday. It
looks it's a six pm kickoff, and you know a
lot of people expected us to be in that semi final.

(19:11):
So last night's crowd was a little bit disappointed. We
certainly wanted more fans there, and so it's a real
rally cry and let's get let's fill go media next
Saturday and get everyone behind the team.

Speaker 3 (19:22):
And Nick, when will the housewife's favorite be back? Francis,
how's he doing.

Speaker 10 (19:28):
He's going well, he's going well. We're hoping he'll be
back for the weekend. He's sort of he's on track,
and we'd always aimed for Saturday the ninth, that semi final,
first weekend, so yeah, barring in the setbacks this weekend,
we're hoping to see him play some sort of path
of it, whether it's off the bench or or or

(19:50):
something bigger.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
Tickets on sale tomorrow, neck, Yeah, So.

Speaker 10 (19:54):
Tickets to go on sale for members at nine am.
So there's an exclusive member window for Orkan CEA members
and that runs through from nine am to four pm,
and then tickets on sale for for general or everybody
all of Auckland from four pm tomorrow. So yeah, let's
fill the stadium.

Speaker 3 (20:11):
Thank you so much for your time this morning. That
was Auckland fcc owed Nick Becker. If you're at the
game or watching the game, I know a lot of
people were, and how did you cope with this? It
just sounded like it was absolutely fantastic. It is twenty
nine past ninete with Newstalks at me.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks
at b Thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
For your text. One reads new immigrants should not be
able should not be entitled to any benefits for the
first ten years, including free hospital visits for old ailments
and gold cards for transport. I don't mind people getting
on the public transport. We kind of all want that
unless people are driving their cars on the roads, and
I don't think we can decline people. Healthcare Acts will
introduce a five year welfare standdown though for all resident

(20:58):
class these are holders. Another one reads morning David Seymore
mentioned translators in the health system I experienced many many
times later has been called five years ago, the ALI
rate was one hundred and twenty five dollars and the
translator would be there for ten or twenty minutes or whatever,
but always put in for the hour. No doubt that
ali rate has increased another unseen cost. Thank you for

(21:19):
your text, Pam, and look I had another one said.
Netflix says that the film that we're going to talk about,
Apex after Eleven, says it's wild that it's set while
kayaking in the Australian wild. Yes, it is. It is
set in Australia. The story does take place in Australia,
but of course our kayaking canyons is so much better.
They had to come to New Zealand and film. But
we will explain all of that later.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
This Sunday session.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
Okay, I'm joined now by political commentator Peter Dunn and gosh, Peter,
good morning, good morning. Where do we start? Okay, let's
start with the Prime Minister and Winston Peters. Do you
think he leaked the emails on purpose?

Speaker 11 (21:56):
I think there was a strategy behind it. Yes, and
the strategy is really about establishing and confirming if you
like that. Peter's is the senior partner in the coalition
and that's not just about now, but it's positioning for
the election and potentially beyond.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
Don't they run the risk though, of sabotaging each other?

Speaker 6 (22:14):
Absolutely?

Speaker 11 (22:15):
And that's I think what the Prime Minister was trying
to hose down. But the problem with it is that
there's a perception being created and being reinforced by all
of this, that the Prime Minister is being run rings
around by Peter's and I think that's the message Peters
wants to get across, that he's the sort of the
senior experienced player here. Now how that plays out at

(22:36):
election time, we'll have to wait and see. I just
note that no government that Peters has been part of
has survived a three year term.

Speaker 3 (22:44):
What do you think it will do? You think the
coalition will be stable enough.

Speaker 11 (22:48):
I think they'll go to the election. I think they
will go to the election. The question then becomes what
happens after the election, and that's where I think Peter's
comment last week that he would rule more emphatically ruling
out labor than previously becomes interesting because that what that
does is send a signal to away National voters that
they can safely vote for New Zealand First without any

(23:10):
prospect of at putting labor in power if you believe
Peter's word.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
But aren't we really just trading voters between National and
New Zealand.

Speaker 11 (23:18):
First, well, that's what it looks like at the moment,
and in that sense, from the perspective of the long
term viability of the coalition, nothing much changes. It still
has the numbers potentially on that basis to continue in
government with Act after the election. The real issue here,
of course, is if Labor was a more should we say,

(23:38):
positive and constructive opposition, it might be attracting those voters
and thus diminishing the problem.

Speaker 3 (23:44):
And I did want to talk. We'll come back to
that in a moment. After the revelation that Luxen attempted
to support the war in Iran, is that a bad
luck for the Prime minister?

Speaker 11 (23:54):
Or given the EPSOS poll result that eighty seven percent
of New Zealanders don't think we should be militarily involved
in Iran, I think the Prime Minister's tacit and not
so tacit support for the war is way out of
step with public opinion.

Speaker 3 (24:07):
Okay, you mentioned Labor, so let's have a little chat
about that. I tend to think the campaign strategy is
nothing to see here because it's just we can't seem
to get any policy out of them now. They're holding
on to after the election, which point you feel like going,
there's no money, It's okay, you can start releasing policy now.
I know that you know we've spoken before. You did

(24:28):
support their stance to hold back on releasing policy. Do
you think that's still working for them?

Speaker 11 (24:33):
It's getting to wear a little thin now because we're
getting closer to the election. I think that the strategy
is still broadly correct, but I do think they do
need to start fishing out some details. So I've said
waiting to laughter the budget, Well, the Parliament will be
in recess for at least a week after the budget,
it always is, and that's the time for Labor to
start seizing the initiative. If they don't, then the strategy

(24:56):
could look very much like you know, the Empres's got
no clothes, Peter.

Speaker 3 (24:59):
Is the budget really going to change a huge amount
for them?

Speaker 2 (25:02):
Though?

Speaker 11 (25:03):
Oh, it's a very difficult budget, this one because of
the current international and economic circumstances. Budgets don't change things
per se, but what they can do is indicated direction
and they can restore what I think's lacking a lot
at the moment, and that's confidence and not so much
the state of the country, but just what are we doing?
And there seems to be a bit of a vacuum

(25:25):
in terms of just what is the response, and the
budget's really got to reinforce here's what we're doing, this
is the plan, and here's how we're going to go
about it. That at least gives you something to hang on.
But at the moment, I think we're just in this
sort of well, we don't really know, we're boxed in between.
So that's what I'm looking to the budget for. Then,
of course you've got how labor responds to that, and

(25:45):
alongside that the ongoing shenanigans with New Zealand.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
First, I mean, I think Nichol Willis really just needs
to deliver it straight. I mean, Peter, we can all
see what's happened. We can all see what's happened to
the front. Mean, we know it's out of our control,
you know.

Speaker 11 (25:57):
Yeah, I think that's right, No more sugarcoating. I mean,
I think we need the facts and we need to know.
You know, you know, in your own household, you think
I'd like to put on an extra room, you know
or whatever, I just can't afford it at the moment,
but I'm planning to do it next year rather than
sort of I just can't afford it, so I'm not

(26:18):
going to do it at all. And I think what
people want is the government saying, look, here's what we
intend to do. We can't imagine doing these things at
the moment, but here's the timetable we're working to longer
term so they get a sense of what lies ahead.
And I think that's what Nicol Willis has got to do.
Just be straight up front, so you know, here's where well,
here's what we can do. These are the things we'd

(26:39):
like to do but can't just yet. But be patient.
You know, here's the plan, a plan.

Speaker 4 (26:44):
That's it.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
Peter, thank you so much as always for your insights.
Really appreciated.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
It is twenty one to ten the Sunday Session Full
Show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by NEWSTALKSB.

Speaker 3 (26:57):
Back in twenty twenty one, then fifteen year old Jade
Varney joined me on the show. Now at the time,
Jade had started a petition to improve youth mental health services.
Bravely shared her own mental health journey and recovery from
an eating disorder. Jade is now a youth advisor for
the Before sixteen Movement and she has shared a message
to adults and she joins me, now, good morning, Jade,

(27:18):
love you to talk to you again.

Speaker 12 (27:19):
Hi, Francesca, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 3 (27:22):
Why have you got on board with the Before sixteen
movement as a youth advisor?

Speaker 13 (27:28):
Well, since I last spoke on the show, I've continued
to be involved in lots of youth mental health sort
of organizations and sort of focusing on getting involved with
grassroots that are already doing work in our communities. And
an overwhelming response from all of these organizations was that
technology was a huge issue, and I honestly didn't need

(27:51):
them to be the ones telling me that it definitely
wasn't new information. And so when I was sort of
proposed the idea that I could become part of this
campaign to restrict social media for before sixteen year olds
in New Zealand, it's sort of seems like a no
brainer to jump on board with.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
Tell me about this message that you've shared with adults,
and this is a message, you know, from someone who's
grown up in the social media age.

Speaker 13 (28:18):
Well, I think a big counter argument at the moment
to the restriction of social media for under sixteen year
olds is that we should be focusing on the education
and schools to allow young people the tools to step
away from social media on their own. And while I
do not disagree with this statement at all, I think

(28:39):
that we are far far beyond the point of just
relying on education to step in and be the intervention
for young people. As we've seen over the last few
years and more recently with the United States court rulings,
is that these technology platforms have been engineered to intercept

(29:00):
our control functions in our brains, and a young person
relying on knowledge they've been taught school just may not
be enough at this current stage to intercept those control features.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
So what do you want adults to know about young
people in social media and what would you like them
to do what can make a difference.

Speaker 13 (29:22):
I think one of the biggest messages is particularly for parents,
for parents who are probably in the phases of having
young people who are coming through and being on social media.
We're talking maybe year seven, year eight sort of age,
is to try and guide them to understand that the

(29:43):
content that they're fed off of social media is really
just a whole other reality. And while this seems like
it should be something that has already been talked about
quite regularly, you'd be surprised by how men how much
of this conversation has been lost within families already.

Speaker 3 (30:04):
And of course the other issue is Jade that lots
of adults love their social media and their phones.

Speaker 13 (30:09):
Right exactly exactly, well, I mean, when I'm talking about
these control mechanisms being overridden through technology, it does not
just apply to young people. But unfortunately, our young people
are the ones with the brains that are still developing,
and our young people are the ones that are really
the most susceptible to the harm and the damage that's

(30:30):
coming from this technology.

Speaker 12 (30:31):
But it does not discriminate.

Speaker 13 (30:33):
It definitely applies to adults as well.

Speaker 3 (30:35):
What is your experience of social media? How did it
impact you?

Speaker 13 (30:39):
Well, when I was going through even my phases of
recovery from my eating disorder, it was actually very very interesting,
even from an experimental point of view, to understand how
quickly the algorithm adapted to whatever I was feeling. And
that was something that was really quite alarming, was that
when I was really quite deep in my eating disorder,

(31:00):
you could almost see the disorder through. If you looked
on my feed on my phone, you could see the
sort of content I was being fed was completely completely
relevant to the way that the emotions I was feeling
and what I was going through. And then while I
was in recovery again, my algorithm adapted to that and
completely changed to fit exactly what I was going through.

(31:21):
And I think that that's probably another message to feed
to people who probably don't quite understand how quickly and
how clever these algorithms work, is that they completely latch
on to whatever is going through subconsciously or consciously in
your mind.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
You're twenty, now, how do you manage your consumption of
social media?

Speaker 13 (31:43):
I think I'm probably a bit of an exception, given
that I am now working in a role where I'm
also campaigning for how harmful and how damaging social media is.
So I actually am off quite a few of the
platforms that a lot of my generation are on, and
I don't. I try my best not to be entirely

(32:08):
consumed by many of the apps, but I still am.

Speaker 12 (32:12):
I'm only human.

Speaker 13 (32:13):
I also full victim to a doomscroll every now and again,
and when I catch myself doing it. I just sort
of think I think I may have mentioned this on
my last interview, but I have young siblings and I
can just I can just see them straight away, like,
exactly how easy it is for the little minds to
be completely overwhelmed by this content themselves.

Speaker 3 (32:33):
So you're having to play a little bit more Monopoly
and Uno and exactly yeah, yeah, which isn't so bad, right, hey,
just really quickly, Obviously, last time we took you were
campaigning for better mental health services. I was wondering, have
you seen anything change since we last spoke.

Speaker 13 (32:49):
It's a very interesting sort of space to be and
from having been advocating for it when I was just fifteen,
I think I sort of felt like I wasn't making
a lot of progress, and I was obviously a little
fish in a massive pond, and I was trying to
go after a very very large goal, and so I
shifted my where I was putting my efforts into smaller organizations.

(33:11):
And I think that that is something that is super
important and really lucky to see sparking over New Zealand,
is that we have lots of youth movements sort of
beginning to evolve and really gain a lot of traction,
but unfortunately I have to admit I feel as though
the youth mental health services are still something that continue,
could continue to be improved, and still need as much

(33:33):
attention as they did probably for five years ago when
I was just fifteen.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
Oh Ja VARNI, thank you so much for your time
this morning. Appreciate it. Love your work. Don't you love
young people that don't just sit around complaining but decide
to make a difference about things. It is eleven to
tenure with news talks 'b.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
The headlines and the hard questions. It's the mic asking breakfast.

Speaker 14 (33:56):
We're back again to the school lunch program. We've got
some new data reports of glass and metal undercooked food.
David seymore as the Associate Education Minister, and so twenty
one is that a number out of what I assume
its hundreds of thousands of lunches?

Speaker 6 (34:07):
Well, it said, it's not that.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
It's about fifty million a year. So so twenty one
out of fifty million.

Speaker 5 (34:12):
Yep. And look not to be here making excuses, but
let's just put a few of these in a bit
more context. There were some issues that occurred while we
had the big blow up in the factory in Hamilton.
We got some alternate suppliers and to cover them and
some of them made mistakes not minimizing it.

Speaker 6 (34:26):
But that issue has been resolved.

Speaker 14 (34:27):
Back tomorrow at six am the Mike Hosking Breakfast with
Maybe's Real Estate News Talks, EDB, Keep.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
It Simple, It's Sunday, The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudcater
and Wiggles for the best selection of great reads used
Talk SEDB, Good Sight.

Speaker 3 (34:50):
Good Peter's New Zealand music has been thoughts.

Speaker 4 (34:55):
Were going to introduce you.

Speaker 3 (34:56):
To an emerging key restart. Her name is Stuff That's
Easy to remember. This is her debut single when You're Around,
which is quite lovely.

Speaker 6 (35:04):
It isn't hey if you don't mind.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
I just want to say thank you to a group
of people who I don't think get thanked very often
or recognized terribly often, and that is those who work
overnight at Auckland Accident and Emergency Department at the Auckland Hospital. Look,
I don't like to hit A and E if I
don't really have to. We know that there are long

(35:27):
wait times and you don't want to add to the system,
do you. But at three am on Wednesday morning, we
had a bit of a We had some unusual symptoms
at home with my daughter and we really didn't need
to get them checked out, so we headed in at
three o'clock in the morning. We ended up doing three
different wards through till five point thirty that day. We
had three different sets of nurses who were all lovely,

(35:47):
incredibly compassionate considering the pain and discomfort that my daughter
was in. We had an incredible emergency doctor who kept
ringing all the specialists, getting the advice we needed, in
the information we needed, and then going back and ringing
them again in order to answer all our questions. Clearly
was managing an awful lot of patients and trying to

(36:09):
get through them all. It was a long and exhausting day,
but the care throughout was excellent, and I am incredibly
grateful for that. But here's the thing. I sat there
for fourteen hours, and if you've been in the ED
and on the wards there and things, you'll know that
there's very little privacy between you and and other patients.

Speaker 4 (36:28):
And I very.

Speaker 3 (36:30):
Quietly listened to the conversations around me, and you know,
these doctors and nurses were dealing with a huge range
of issues, a huge range of circumstances. And it wasn't
just the doctors and nurses. What I was really impressed
with was there's just a huge support staff there as well.
I don't know what you call them. There were all
sorts of different social workers coming in, people coming in
to talk to patients, check their head care at home,

(36:53):
work out how they could get their medications, work out,
how they could get home from A and E. There
was this huge wrap around support taking place towards these people. Yes,
the wait time are terrible, the lack of resources is
not great. When one of the nurses gave me a
beautiful warm blanket, which are four in the morning, was
just divine. She said to me, we might be lacking

(37:14):
a lot of resources, but we've got lots of warm blankets.
And there are the difficulties of looking after these people
once they go back into the community. But I just
must say that throughout the night, the care and throughout
the day the care was exceptional, and I just say
thank you very much for that. It is six to
ten news.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
Talks EDB, the Sunday Session full show podcast on iHeart
Radio powered by News Talks EDB.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
Right, So this week Elon Musk's lawsuit against open Ai
and Sam Altman kicked off in the US. So Musk
objects to open AI's decision to move away from being
nonprofit and open a commercial arm. This happened in twenty eighteen,
which is when he left the company, and it kind
of kicked off the commercial AI market. So Musk's lawyers
claim that open Ai and it's Altman and its co

(38:04):
founder Greek Brockman, they stole charity. Says he's asking the
billions of dollars in what his lawyers call wrongful gains.
He wants to use that to fund open ayes nonprofit arm,
and he wants to see a shake up at the company,
including the ousting of Oltman. Now, Karen Hausbog is the
best source to understand how we got to this place today.
It's called Empire of Ai. It tells the story of

(38:27):
open Ai, how big tech took over AI, and how
it's affected us all. And she joins me next year
on newstalk, said being this is new music from Drags
Project twenty four to seven.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
It's Sunday. You know what that means.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rutkin and Wickles for
the best selection of great reeds U stalk set be.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
Lovely to have you with us. It is seven past ten.
So just what does the future of AI have in
store for us all? None of us really know, do we?
Seven years ago, when investigative journalist Karen Howell started looking
into Sam Oltman's Open AI, she thought they were one
of the good guys. Extensive research and unparalleled access to
those closest to the AI race have left Karen with

(39:48):
a much different view of tech companies and those leading
the charge. Her work in the space has made her
one of the most foremost tech journals covering AI. She's
been listed in Time magazines one hundred most Influential People,
and Karen is heading to New Zealand for the Auckland
Writers Festival with her book Empire of AI and How's
with Me now?

Speaker 9 (40:07):
Good morning, Hi Francesca, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 3 (40:10):
Firstly, and I'm sure my audience knows this, but can
we justifine the term AI and AGI?

Speaker 9 (40:18):
Yes? So, I always like to say that the word
AI is like the word transportation. It refers to such
a wide collection of technologies that can be as different
as different from a bicycle to a rocket, and really
these technologies are just loosely tied together based on the
fact that they are each trying to mimic a certain

(40:40):
aspect of human capability. So there are systems that mimic
our language abilities, there are systems that mimic our listening abilities,
are visual recognition and it Ultimately each of these these
different types of AI technologies can actually be vastly different

(41:02):
and have very different cost benefit trade offs. AGI is
a term that refers to artificial general intelligence and is
meant to evoke this idea that somehow the ultimate quest
for building AI technologies is to replicate all human capabilities

(41:22):
in a single system. But one of the problems with
AGI is that it's very poorly defined, in that we
don't really have good ways of defining what human intelligence
is and whether or not we've actually reached the goalposts
of AGI. And so my criticism of companies that use
this kind of rhetoric is that they are essentially just

(41:45):
leveraging the lack of a shared definition as a way
to just hype up their technologies.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
Bringant, thank you for starting us off with it. That's excellent.
Is ADI about science? The betament of humankind, power or
money or all of the above.

Speaker 9 (42:01):
Primarily it's about power and money. AGI at this point
is you could say, almost a quasi religious quest, and
just like other religions, there is this idea that it
is ultimately meant to bring people who believe in AGI

(42:24):
to heaven, and it could also be a tool that
damns people to hell. But the reason why this is
such a potent narrative and is used so often is
because companies that are saying that they're building AGI are
ultimately able to use this to justify the accruval of
an enormous amount of money and power. So all of

(42:46):
the tech companies that are developing AI and using the
AGI narrative, like open Ai, Anthropic, Xai, Google, they now
are the most valuable companies in the world and they
still want to continue a crewing yet more capital to

(43:08):
build their technologies. They are deploying more capital than ever
any other industry ever before to build massive infrastructure projects
all around the world. So, yeah, at the heart of
this conversation is indeed money and power.

Speaker 3 (43:25):
And we'll dig into that shortly. But AI open AI
is sort of the center of the book that you've written,
and open AI began as an ultruistic organization. It was
a nonprofit open organization, is implied by the title, It
had this idealistic governance structure. What was its original objective?

Speaker 9 (43:46):
So I have a different answer for this now versus
when I first started covering Open AI. Back then, I
thought they had this kind of pure hearted, mission driven
objective of trying to ensure that AI advancement ultimately goes
well and benefits all of humanity, and that then there
was some kind of profit motive that slowly corrupted the

(44:10):
organization over time. But in hindsight, I think they're real objective.
Their objective that wasn't actually explicitly stated when public messaging
was a desire to become the dominant AI lab in
the world or the dominant force shaping AI technology development

(44:32):
in the world, and you could say that that has
never changed, and what we're seeing now is just a
continued manifestation of this desire for dominance.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
Because the hugely competitive these II companies. This is what
you learn through the book. There is this drive to
be first, these ideological clashes, which makes each player think
that they need to be first to deliver AI for
their purpose because it's the right purpose, and yet that
ambition doesn't quite sit with the ethically minded AI that
they claim to sort of star out with, does it.

Speaker 4 (45:09):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 9 (45:10):
I mean, it's so. The thing that's so interesting is
I often use this analogy that the AI world is
a little bit like Dune, the science fiction epic by
Frank Herbert. And the reason is because in Dune, the
main character poly treatise he knows that there are these
myths that are seated on different planets, including his own Oracus,

(45:33):
and that that myth help portrays himself as the coming
of the Messiah, and that if he steps into the myth,
he can leverage it to control the people. And so
he steps into it, but he genuinely believes that this
is to ultimately achieve a good purpose, like he is
doing it in a morally righteous way. And then he

(45:56):
also begins to lose himself in the myth because every
day he's living and embodying this myth, and the myth
and reality start to blur for him, and he starts
to wonder whether or not actually, in fact, he is
the Messiah and the myth is real.

Speaker 4 (46:09):
And this is just such an.

Speaker 9 (46:11):
Applicable metaphor for how the AI world works, because there's
all this myth making about AGI that many people know
is myth making. They are leveraging it as this marketing
rhetoric to accurue more money and power to the company.
But they also exist in this space where myth and

(46:34):
reality are blurred. They breathe this myth day in and
day out, and they begin to wonder whether or not
it's true, and at the end of the day they're like,
irrespective of whether or not it's true, both myth making
and this quest is ultimately for good. We are in
the moral we are doing something morally righteous. And so

(46:56):
there is this degree of, like to say it in
like a not too flattering way, self delusion that happens
within the AI world, where people are the revealed pursuit
is of money and power, but their stated pursuit continues
to be this really these like high minded ideals where

(47:19):
if you talk with most people in the AIR world,
they genuinely believe that they are on the quest to
bringing benefit all of humanity.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
And Karen, who is shaping AI is important, isn't it?
Is it being shaped by too small a pull of people?

Speaker 9 (47:35):
Absolutely? I mean I think that is the central problem
of the A industry today. And the reason why I
call these companies empires of AI is because they essentially
are these entities that have accrued an enormous amount of power,
and ultimately they are these small number of people are

(48:00):
dictating to billions of people around the world how this
technology that is fun mentally consequential to the future is
going to go, and therefore how everyone in the future
is meant to live and relate to each other and
to work without any input from those billions of people.

(48:20):
And so it doesn't really matter like who is at
the top in this kind of scenario, as long as
there's this power structure that enables a small group of
people to dictate these things to billions of people without
any accountability, it really doesn't like just switching out the
cast of characters at the top doesn't really solve the problem.

Speaker 3 (48:44):
It's a very broad question, and I know that it
can't be a quick answer, but you know, maybe you
could just touch on the social and environmental costs of AGI.

Speaker 9 (48:54):
So I don't think people fully understand that AI as
a digital technology has actually a very physical and involved
supplely chain that also includes an enormous amount of human labor.
So there are two aspects of AI development that are

(49:16):
often overlooked because of this lack of awareness about that
supply chain. One is that there's an enormous amount of
labor exploitation that happens as part of the supply chain,
and the other is that there's this massive physical manifestation
of AI development, which comes in the form of data
centers and supercomputers that are popping up all around the world.

(49:39):
When it comes to the labor exploitation, I talk in
my book about these content moderators that Opening Eye contracted
in Kenya to build a content moderation filter that they
ultimately put on chat gbt to ensure that users would
never be exposed to the horrific toxic content that they

(50:01):
were scraping from Reddit and other social media forums to
train their A models. And in the same way as
content moderators in the social media are these content moderators,
their psychological state of mind just completely devolved. And not
only did they break down as individuals, their families broke down,

(50:22):
their communities broke down because they are part of a
fabric in society and when they can't support themselves, there's
suddenly a hole in that fabric, and that fabric begins
to unwind the other aspect, the environmental aspect.

Speaker 6 (50:38):
People.

Speaker 9 (50:39):
You know, people are familiar with data centers. Generally speaking,
people understand data centers to be essential to our modern
digitally mediated lives. But what is not well understood is
the degree to which AI data centers are of a
fundamentally different breed of data center. So Meta's first data
center in twenty eleven, compared to their current AI supercomputer

(51:03):
that they are building in Louisiana, the supercomputer is four
hundred times the size of that first data center, and
it is on track to be one fifth size of
Manhattan and to eventually use the same amount of power
as the average power demand in all of New York City.

(51:23):
So these facilities are the size of cities and use
the power demand of cities, and there are like they're
popping up all around the world, Like this is just
one facility that I'm talking about. And so the data
center expansion is single handedly beginning to reverse the climate

(51:49):
gains that we made in the last decade, because what
are these facilities actually being powered by. They're being powered
by fossil fuels. The technistry loves to talk this big
game about how they're going to use nuclear to power
these facilities with more clean.

Speaker 4 (52:07):
With clean energy, but.

Speaker 9 (52:09):
The nuclear build out would not be able to happen
nearly fast enough for supporting this data center build out.
And so what we're actually seeing is coal plants that
we're meant to be retired that are instead having their
lives extended. Natural gas plants, new natural gas plants that

(52:33):
are being built, and there have been many many cases
in which these plants or these plants end up. You know,
they're not just spewing carbon, they're also spewing air pollutants
into communities. And there's an infamous case of Elon Musk

(52:53):
building a giant supercomputer called Colossies in Memphis, Tennessee, and
using thirty five methan gas turbines to power this facility,
and the community that exists near this facility found out
that these methane gas turbines had popped up overnight when
they started smelling what smelled like a gas leak in
their homes, and they suddenly discovered that they know they

(53:17):
were having their right to clean air taken away from them.
So there's just all of these interlocking harms that are
very hidden to the average consumer of AI technologies when
it comes to this technology's development.

Speaker 3 (53:35):
Karen, AI is moving. It's moving so fast. It's such
a fast moving industry. Can you predict how it's going
to continue to develop?

Speaker 9 (53:42):
I don't engage in predictions because predictions assume that the
future's already written, and all of my work is ultimately
about how we today, based on our actions, create the
future together. And so what I hope will happen with
the AI industry and with AI development is that everyone

(54:05):
listening to this program, everyone that's thinking about AI and
thinking about how they ultimately want to live their lives,
realize the degree of agency that they have individually and
collectively to apply pressure to these companies and hold them
accountable when they do not like what they see, and
ultimately shubbered in a completely different vision for AI development

(54:28):
where people can truly benefit from this technology.

Speaker 3 (54:32):
Karen, it's been wonderful to talk to you. I thank
you so much for your time, really appreciate it.

Speaker 9 (54:38):
Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 3 (54:39):
That was investigative journalist Karen how Her book Empire of
Ai is out now. Karen is also heading to New
Zealand for the Auckland Writers Festival. The festival begins on
the twelfth of May. For more information here to Writers
Festival dot co dot nz. And don't forget that Olympic
medalist look at Jones is with me after eleven to
talk about her role as a stunty in the new
Netflix film Apex. It's twenty two past ten.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
Relaxed, it's still the weekend.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
A Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin and Whig calls for
the best selection of great reads US talks.

Speaker 3 (55:12):
That'd be Mother's Day is fast approaching, with the opportunity
to thank our mums for all they've done for us. Sunday,
May tenth is the big day, just one week away,
and whit Cales knows that it can be daunting to
find just the right thing to show your appreciation. That's
why they haven't gorgeous gifts, puzzles to your love, special
things for the foody mum, and loads of great books

(55:33):
to choose from. If your mum loves loves reading, there's
bound to be something there that she'll enjoy. There truly
is a book for every reading taste, and of course,
a whit Calls gift card gives your mum the gift
of choice. You'll find all these things and more at
whit Calls, both in store and online with books, games, puzzles, toys,
gorgeous stationary, a terrific gift selection with beautiful wrapping, paper,

(55:55):
ribbons and cards to make it special. There really is
something for every mum at wit Calls.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
For the Sunday session.

Speaker 9 (56:05):
On more.

Speaker 3 (56:15):
And that is the beautiful voice of Marlon Williams, who
was one of the winners at this week's Hate Music Prize.
To talk us through the awards, Steve Neil joins us,
good morning, good morning. Last week you said to me,
you said, our, look, Marlin story at the top of
the list. But you know he's had quite a few
accolades already. Be interesting to see which way the judges go.

Speaker 15 (56:36):
But absolutely, and you know it might have been the
most you know, low odds outcome, but still nonetheless deserved
an award that's given for underniable originality, underenable skill and
undeniable creativity, the qualities championed by Dylan Tate himself, and
I think that lines up with those really nicely. So
the big winners included Marlon Williams Geneva Am for their

(56:57):
record pickI Picky, which won Auckland Live Best Independent Debut,
and The Mint Chick's astonishing still Incredible record Crazy Yes
Dumina receive the Independent Music New Zealand Classic Record Award.
So Aside from the big winners, other takeaways from the
night were included the messages from the stage. Some were
about affirming the value of the arts, like mccrah thompson,

(57:21):
who noted that music and all its joys exist within
a wider system that seems to be struggling and while
it's reductive to speak of the value of music and
dollars and cents, Thompson noted that nine hundred and thirty
two million dollars contributed to the GDP of Altedara in
one year, noting that music is not a nice to have,
it's an engine that creates jobs as well as joy

(57:41):
so it's a good aside, I think, to looking at
the sort of creative elements at play here. Others took
the opportunity to directly address Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister
Paul Goldsmith, who was in attendance. Some of those were
fairly direct comments and others were quite straightforward, like Independent
Spirit Award Carmel Bennett, who had two very clear asks

(58:03):
sort out the copyright acts and get local acts on
every international show. I personally couldn't agree more. There was
a standing ovation for the latter in the room.

Speaker 3 (58:14):
Camill Bennett is one of these people who's been behind
the music scene for decades. You know, she has worked
in so many different areas and done so many different things.
I can't being around for a long long time totally.
She knows what she's talking about.

Speaker 15 (58:26):
Her work is defined by care and empathy and it's
seen no more clearly than her current role at Music
charity Music Helps. But she's very direct nobs.

Speaker 3 (58:38):
Now, I knows what she's talking about.

Speaker 15 (58:40):
Yeah, and then the other takeaway from the night for
me was the venue. It was hosted held at the
New Zealand International Convention Center. This is exactly what the
name describes. It's a very nice convention center. Is it
a place for music and entertainment? For me, the jury
is still out. I know that Beck Groener played there recently.
Would have loved to have seen that show. There are

(59:02):
a whole bunch of upcoming shows on the night. It
did feel like a nice new convention center rather than
kind of a glitz and glamour nightlife spot. So I
think the jury remains out.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
That's interesting, but.

Speaker 15 (59:16):
Undoubtedly there'll be a big wave of stuff coming and
I'm really really keen to see some shows there. Just
the vibe didn't quite feel maybe maybe it could be.

Speaker 6 (59:26):
It's fair enough.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
Now we both stumbled to cross a new TV show
on Apple TV. It's called Widow's Bay.

Speaker 15 (59:32):
This is This is awesome. It's so nice to find
a new contender for what might be one of the
better shows on Apple TV, which is already a pretty
high pedigree. I'm stealing someone else's description here, but you
can't go past Parks and Wreck meets Stephen King sat
on a small Island. Matthew Reese, the fantastic lead of

(59:54):
the awesome show The Americans, is the town mayor. There's
kind of a whiff of the mayor from Jaws about him.
He's trying to ignore all the bad things about his
town because he just wants tourists to come. It's a
very familiar setup, but there's a really interesting tone in
the show. It's comedy horror, it's kind of satire, but
it's also got a really kind of strong anchor to it,

(01:00:15):
even though there's sea hags and zombies and killer fog
and killer clowns and stuff. So the kind of premises
there's a small town, it's got a whole bunch of
mythologies to it. They are a bit more truer than
anyone really wants to acknowledge. And yeah, Matthew Reese's mayor
is trying to kind of just drag this place, kicking
and screaming into the twenty first century tourism. But it's

(01:00:36):
really spooky. The scares are good, the laughs are really good.
But crucially Reese and his co stars kind of anchor
it with actual performances. There's something special going on here.
I can't quite find. I can't quite put my finger
on the shot. It reminds you of the most something
kind of nineties about it. You mentioned Midney's mass.

Speaker 3 (01:00:52):
Before, but that's way too serious serious.

Speaker 15 (01:00:55):
It kind of blends these things in a way that
is a really hard mixed to pull off.

Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
You're just stepping back in time into sort of this
timeless place. It has its own sort of myths and legends,
and they're just sort of existing in their own world.

Speaker 15 (01:01:07):
Yeah, knowing it's a contemporary work out of their witch trials,
unlike most cities in America. And I think just a
couple of credits that are worth noting here is it's
created by Katie Dipple, who's a writer on Parks and Rax,
so it kind of explains that connection. And the first
five apps have been directed by Hero Murdai, who's probably
best known for his work on Atlanta, which is Donald

(01:01:28):
Glover's comedy, which kind of had the same thing right
like that was sort of all over the place tonally
and somehow managed to pull these elements.

Speaker 3 (01:01:35):
Together ever so gently takes the makey out of people
who have never left the island, but it does it
with a fondness that you kind of love their quirks
about there slightly.

Speaker 15 (01:01:45):
Yeah, and no one escapes that kind of scathing eye,
but certainly not least of all the mayor who's very
much not a local.

Speaker 6 (01:01:53):
There we go.

Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
I love it. So if you want to check out
a new TV show, try Apple TV's Widow's Bay. Thank
you so much, Steve. We'll talk to you next week.
I think if your text as well. I guess Karen
Howe was just talking to us about big tech AI
really important to note if you do read the book,
she's not ANTIAI in general. She thinks that there are

(01:02:14):
a lot of people, including she talks about New Zealand
companies as well, who were doing incredible things with AI
and how amazing it can be for communities and things.
She's talking just big tech AI, you know, the people
who are scraping all that information, taking all our data
without paying for it, and then turning it into a
commercial product then sort of sell back to us and

(01:02:34):
make lots of money off. Somebody texts to say, your
guest is on the button. Why are someone Why are
humans so desperate to accept without question? It is so frightening.
I despair. Thank you very much for your text. Going
to enjoyed the interview. It is twenty seven to eleven
News Talks at B.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks
at B.

Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
Joining me now with her Science study of the Week,
Doctor Michelle Dick and Sink.

Speaker 4 (01:03:04):
Good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
Okay, this is a good one today, especially for those
who fly a lot, and I know that you are
a lot at the moment, and it's probably made me
realize that I'm quite selfish when I fly, and I haven't.

Speaker 16 (01:03:13):
Really thought about anybody else on my flight. So here's
my question Sunday morning, when you are booking a flight,
do you have a preferred seat like your window or
an aisle like do you or do you not care?

Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
I'm an aisle, yeah, because not in the model.

Speaker 6 (01:03:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:03:28):
I like to be able to get up. I like
to be able to get up and move or go
to the low or kind of it's strictly agout in
the aisle to get clipped by a trolley.

Speaker 16 (01:03:36):
So that's true, and then you don't want to be trapped.
The window is nice if you're sleeping, but then you
can't get out for a week.

Speaker 12 (01:03:42):
All of these things.

Speaker 16 (01:03:43):
So these are things I always think about on a flight.
I had never thought about anybody else on this flight
until I read this article. It is published this week
in the journal AIP Advances if you want to read it,
and what it concludes is that when it comes to
safety on a plane, it is not about where you sit.
Is it about who sits around you that matters more
to your survival. And that was like, oh, hold on,

(01:04:06):
I thought about this. So here's some things I didn't
know that. I learned in this paper. So there is
a global Aviation Safety Standard rule and it states every
passenger in the event of an emergency, every passenger must
be able to evacuate a plane in ninety seconds, no
matter where you're sitting. Right, doesn't actually seem very long,
but they've done all these tests, so every plane has

(01:04:27):
passed this test. So they've basically gone, yeah, totally. The
way that we've made the aisles and put the seats
and all the things means that everybody could actually get
off this in ninety seconds. However, when you look into
how they test this, it's based on control tests literally
perfect condition, so no real fire is happening. Very calm
volunteers are told to this symbark under a controlled pretend

(01:04:49):
plane crash, and what you find is that it's a
pretty ideal scenario. And so these researchers went, do you
know what, I'm pretty sure in a plane crash, nobody's
going to follow the rules. Everybody's going to be panicking,
people are going to be pushing and shoving, and actually
not everybody is going to be the same in how
they move. So it said, we're going to do this

(01:05:10):
research study that says what actually happens during a realistic
evacuation and does the passenger type as in age and
the seating location that they are put in affect everybody's survival.
And this is now when you're gonna get on the plane,
we're going to get ages Downeah, we're going it superageous.
So they ran twenty seven different scenarios with different passenger
mixes and everything else on a digital model of an

(01:05:32):
Airbus three twenty cabin, and they did the worst case scenario,
which is a dual engine fire, which means that the
middle doors can't open, so you can only get out
of the front and the back exits right, you can't
get out of the wings.

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):
Oh, when it's hapening in ninety seconds?

Speaker 16 (01:05:46):
No, well no, they basically said it's never going to
happen ninety seconds, that was the conclusion. The fastest they
could do it was one hundred and forty one seconds.
The worst they did it was two hundred and eighteen seconds.
And the thing that made it worse was old people.
They were basically like, basically, older passengers move more slowly,
which slows down the evacuation of the whole plane. And

(01:06:08):
so what they said, is the best way to load
a plane. And this is where I go. Well, with
an aging population, now when we book our seats in
the future, are they going to assume my age and
only give me options? Because this is what they said.
Older people are going to cluster, They're going to create bottlenecks,
and so what you need to do is randomly place
older people so they don't create surges and congestions. You

(01:06:30):
should never sit them together. So sorry, if you're on
your like fiftieth wedding anniversary to go somewhere, you actually
have to sit apart for the safety of the plane.
And so, you know, maybe we're going to have with
the aging population, we're going to have more elderly people
probably on flights. So they said, actually, if you want
to think about safety, older people shouldn't have a choice.

Speaker 4 (01:06:50):
Where they sit.

Speaker 16 (01:06:51):
They should be randomly distributed so they don't create bottlenecks.

Speaker 3 (01:06:55):
And either I don't know, I kind of get to
the feeling if you've got both engines on farm, maybe
it doesn't really matter, you know what I mean, you
can kind of go. I don't know, maybe if we
just put them all on the sort of the emergency
owl because then they can just kind of wing to
hunt them off down.

Speaker 12 (01:07:07):
They tried that.

Speaker 16 (01:07:09):
I don't do that because they actually blocked the island.
Then nobody really thought about this.

Speaker 4 (01:07:12):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
I came to sell and it's something for us all
to think about. And next time we book a ticket
and someone seduced that you know, puts you on a
seat that you're not entirely happy with, there might be
a reason for it, depending on your age. Interesting well took.
Next week.

Speaker 1 (01:07:25):
Thank you The Sunday Session Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio
powered by News Talks.

Speaker 3 (01:07:33):
Join me now is our resident chief Mike vander Allison.

Speaker 6 (01:07:36):
Good morning, good morning. You've got something.

Speaker 3 (01:07:38):
Quite impressive sounding for us today and very rich. Five
duck delivers with port and cream. Where does this come from?

Speaker 6 (01:07:51):
Wow? Duck season.

Speaker 3 (01:07:52):
Oh, I mean more ethically, but you know, ethnically, but.

Speaker 6 (01:08:05):
It would be more of a French cuisines. Okay, but
you get it, you get you know. Duck livers are
massive all through you know, Spain and Portugal they're huge.
But this this particular dish I served I created at Moulton,
going back, going back sixteen odd years ago and probably longer.

Speaker 3 (01:08:25):
Actually bad timing because this is the beginning. This weekend
does mark the beginning of duck season, doesn't it?

Speaker 6 (01:08:31):
It is? It is so all those ducks, watch out,
they're coming for you.

Speaker 3 (01:08:36):
It's port and cream waiting for you.

Speaker 6 (01:08:41):
It's so this this recipe is, you know, it does
use duck livers. Difference between chicken livers and duck livers.
Duck livers, I guess, are a little bit more, have
a little bit more strengthen, a little bit more gamy.
They tend to be darker, they tend to kind of
potentially have more blood in them, so they are a

(01:09:02):
stronger liver. However, you do get their gaminess out of them.
So if you are in that position and you're shooting
ducks or you're out there and you're like, what do
I do with the liver? Here?

Speaker 3 (01:09:12):
You go, okay, take us through it.

Speaker 6 (01:09:15):
So call it fired because the word fired kind of
runs to the fact that this is a really fast
cooking dish. So your pan needs to be super hot.
So get everything ready. I've got two hundred and fifty
grands of duck livers. If you can't find duck livers
or you haven't got duck livers, checking livers just as good,
just as delicious. So get everything ready. So I run

(01:09:36):
through the ingredients. First, two hundred fifty grands of duck livers,
half a cup of red wine, quarter of a cup
of port, three quarters of a cup of fresh cream.
But I've got six field mushrooms. But hey, if you've
got a bunch of mushrooms, just chop those guys up.
Half an onion or a slot either either it's been
felled and peeled and sliced super thin. Two clothes of
garlic and crush those up. And then you've got a

(01:10:00):
couple of tablespoons of some flout oil, salt, pepper. That's
your ingredients ready to go. Once you've got all those ready,
you take your I've got a cast iron pad, get
that cranking. Add in the oil. It's going to be hot,
so it's going to smoke. Then go the onions. Then
go the garlic. Saute, saute literally thirty seconds. Then go
in the livers. Cook them on one side. Resisted, resist

(01:10:22):
the temptation to turn them too quickly, because you want color.
Color is flavor. Leave them for about thirty seconds, turn them,
leave them for about another thirty seconds, and then then
goes the red wine. In goes the port. Be careful,
don't stand too close, otherwise you'll lose all your hair
because it is going to fire up. What's that fire disappears?

(01:10:45):
Then go in the cream three cause of a cup
of cream, mushrooms that are being chopped up, Add those
and then reduce the whole lot down. So we're going
to leave those livers in there for a further thirty seconds,
so we're talking about a minute and a half to
two minutes of cooking in total. The after thirty seconds,
once you've added the cream, add for a leaf for
another thirty seconds. Then take the livers out because what

(01:11:06):
we don't want to do is we don't want to
overcook those livers because then the iron comes out and
they become very strong and dry and bitter. So we
take those out, set those aside, and then continue to
reduce the cream down with the mushrooms in can it.
Once that becomes nice and thick, season it up, liver, salt,
good crack of pepper. Have it all taste. If you're
happy with it, then go back to your livers, place

(01:11:28):
them on to maybe a piece of toasted saldo for instance,
and then spoon that lashouse mushroom cream sauce over the
top of them and then serve them immediately.

Speaker 3 (01:11:38):
Seems to this the key is not over.

Speaker 6 (01:11:40):
Cooking absolutely all with all livers. The key is to
serve them just under. You want them to be pink,
You want them to be slightly bloody. You don't want
them to be fully cooked through. Otherwise that's where everyone's like, oh,
these are so dry and strong and horrible. If they're
just under, they keep their moisture brilliant.

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
Love it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:00):
Thank you so much, Mike. You can find that recipe
good from scratch dot co dot nz, or you can
head to news toxed dot co dot nz. Excuse me,
forward slash Sunday and yeah, best of luck. If you're
out there doing a little bit of duck hunting, there
is a lovely fried duck livers with port and cream
recipe for you. It is twelve to eleven.

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
There's no better way to start your Sunday.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rutkin and Whig Girls
for the best selection of great breaths use talks.

Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
That'd be.

Speaker 6 (01:12:33):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:12:33):
So after those fried duck livers with port and cream,
let's talk wellness and I'm joined now by Aaron O'Hara.

Speaker 4 (01:12:39):
Good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 3 (01:12:41):
We are going to talk about additives and how they
affect our gut microbiome. And of course we're all about
our gut at the moment and looking after it, aren't
we erin.

Speaker 17 (01:12:50):
We are we are, and additives are kind of addited
to everything. But I'm sure that Mike's recipe that he
just shared probably didn't have any additives in it, as
he's all about cooking from scratch and that really helps
you to cut back on additives added to your foot. Now,
if you're unsure what additives are, they're pretty much in
any processed food, so they can be from artificial sweetness, colors, flavors,

(01:13:16):
and emulsifiers that just make the texture of food better,
last longer, and have a better shelf life as well.
So the pretty much in most of our surf market,
in anything that's in a box or a packet to
make it shelf stable. However, the effect of all these additives,
actually there's lots more research, particularly in the last ten years,

(01:13:37):
on the effect it's having in our gut because most
of their emulsifiers are really only tested for their toxicity
effects and the ability to induce DNA damage, but not
really tested on the gut. So there's lots of new
research just really in the last few years on the
effect it's having on the gut.

Speaker 3 (01:13:56):
Okay, and our gut's important because it influences pretty much everything,
doesn't It.

Speaker 17 (01:14:01):
Absolutely everything in the body, from your mood to your
overall well being, your how your mental health.

Speaker 4 (01:14:08):
Your sleep.

Speaker 17 (01:14:09):
Everything gets effective from your gut and it's actually the
main place you're uptaking all your nutrients, so you want
to make sure looking after the environment within your gut.
It's like a little ecosystem, and when we're eating a
lot of processed food, it actually lowers the diversity within
the gut, which actually has a huge, huge effect on
your overall health. But there's actually some of the research

(01:14:30):
that's been done recently shows that it's reducing the beneficial
bacteria within the gut, but also eroding the protective intestinal
layer within the gut, so causing what's known as leaky gut.
So it's weakening the lining, which is actually then creating
a trigger of inflammation within the gut as well, and
that's where some of the studies have been done on

(01:14:52):
irritable bowel syndrome or IBS as well as inflammatory bowel disease,
so things that are causing inflammation within the gut lining
that's actually having a huge effect on your.

Speaker 3 (01:15:06):
Own Do we know what sort of mechanisms are allowing
the additives to disrupt the microbibe.

Speaker 17 (01:15:13):
It's just the effect of that ultra processed kind of toxicity. Basically,
it's chemicals. It's like a science experiment adding all those
chemicals into your food. And then what effect is that
concoction or cocktail effect having within the gut Because the
chemicals are basically keeping the food more shelft stable, but

(01:15:34):
also destroying the bacteria within the gut. That actually creates
a change within the microbiome environment. And really, if we're
wanting to cut back on those additives, it's really been
aware of what's in your food. And if you're walking
around the surf market starting with you know, just reading
the labels, looking at what's in the packet and all

(01:15:55):
the ingredients. Le's if it's something you don't know, it's
not meant to be a science experiment reading package packet food.
I understand you should be knowing what it is.

Speaker 3 (01:16:05):
Yeah, I've been using the Kiwi app and you can.
You can download it for free and it will tell
you what food additives in it, but it translates for
you and gives you really good explanations. So it could
be but frightening, can't it when you suddenly realize what's
your food?

Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
So?

Speaker 17 (01:16:18):
How do we how do we rereading everything?

Speaker 3 (01:16:20):
How do we reduce that intake?

Speaker 17 (01:16:23):
Well, that's where just start reading the packets, start eating
more whole foods where you can cooking cooking from scratch.
Maybe you jump on Mike's website Good from Scratch dot
Coto instead. I'm sure he's got plenty of recipes on
their that don't have processed ingredients in and that will
help you cut back in your oval intake of additives,

(01:16:48):
coloring flavorings, because if you cook your own food, generally
you don't start adding those sorts of things into the foods.
And that's where you can really notice if you're making
your own bread or cakes that they don't last as
long because they don't have all those additives in, but
they're actually better for you too.

Speaker 3 (01:17:04):
Thank you so much. Erin really love to catch up
with you. That was Erin O'Hara.

Speaker 1 (01:17:08):
The Sunday session Full show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by
News Talks at b.

Speaker 3 (01:17:15):
We we're talking to doctor Michelle Dickinson about the safest
seat on a plane might not be where you think.
I had a text from Lindsay who said flight tips.
I call me anal, but if you're on a long flight,
I always say to my wife, don't take your shoes
off until we get comfortable until well after take off,
as you don't want to try and get off a
crash damage plane with only socks on, reverse applies and landing.
I've got this version of us all bending down and
trying to drop our shoelacers and things before we get

(01:17:37):
off in an emergency. Thank you for that, hey. Coming
up next, there is a new film on Netflix. It's
called Apex. It stars Charlie Thereon and Taron Editon. It's
an action pack thriller. It's set in Ozzie in Australia
and the Outback. It's a story about a grieving woman
seeking solace in the wilderness, only to become ensnared in
a deadly game of cat and mouse with a serial killer. Anyway,

(01:17:58):
Luca Jones, Yes, Arkayak Olympius. She is the stunt double
in the film, so really looking forward to talking to
her about that. Next you're on newstalk'sb.

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
New Welcome to the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and
Wiggles for the best selection of great reeds used corks.

Speaker 3 (01:18:30):
You're with the Sunday Session. It is seven past eleven.
Good to have you with us. King Charles was in
New York this week, well so with our travel correspondent
Meghan Singleton. So this actually tells us all about it.
Joan has the latest book from Patrick Raden, Keith and
Piney on Augland FC's Elimination Round roller Coaster.

Speaker 2 (01:18:49):
The Sunday Session.

Speaker 3 (01:18:51):
From Olympic silver medallist to Hollywood stunt woman. It's quite
the career turn, and I'm not sure it's one that
Kiwi Kayaker Luka Jones Yaxley saw coming. Shortly after retiring
from the high performance canoe slalom at the Paris Olympic,
Luca received a call and an offer to appear as
Charlie's Theron's stunt double in Netflix film Apex. The film

(01:19:13):
is out now and Luca Jones Yaxley joins me. Now,
Good morning Luca.

Speaker 12 (01:19:18):
Good morning, Francesca.

Speaker 3 (01:19:20):
So tell me how did you bing Charlie's Theron's stunt
double come about?

Speaker 12 (01:19:27):
Very randomly?

Speaker 18 (01:19:28):
Actually, I just received a text from a friend down
the South Island and he called me and said he's
been doing a bunch of water safety on some films
and that this film had approached him and they needed
a kayak double for Charlie's Theron. And yeah, it kind
of went from there. I didn't believe that it was

(01:19:49):
actually going to come to anything. I thought, you know,
it sounded more like an April fool's joke than something
that was actually real. But yeah, in January, River Mutton,
who was also her double, and I were on a
plane to the South Island to begin filming.

Speaker 3 (01:20:04):
The whitewater scenes. A lot of them filmed here in
New Zealand. The film was sort of set in Australia,
but it was so obvious from the you know, from
the flora and things, you know, you could tell it
was in New Zealand. But my understanding is that some
of those locations aren't easily accessible had you paddled them before.

Speaker 12 (01:20:24):
I hadn't.

Speaker 18 (01:20:25):
But they're really famous rivers in the whitewater world. And
it was actually a Bucketka checked off so many kind
of dream goals throughout this experience, and one of them
was paddling on these incredible West Coast rivers, and some
of them to get into paddle you'd have to carry
your kayaking for you know, ten hours and really work

(01:20:45):
for these rapids. But we got helicoptered in and it
was pretty bougie, really.

Speaker 3 (01:20:51):
Not a bait bay of doing it right. Taking off
that plat list, what were the spots like when it
comes to the actual sort of river and kayaking and things.

Speaker 18 (01:21:02):
Kind of like your classic West Coast rivers like beautiful
act blue water, which you didn't see in the movie,
but that was our experience, and you know, huge boulders,
those sorts of things. So they'd come in and scouted
all of these different locations and we flew in to
film them. But with anything on the West Coast, like
if it's raining, the rivers are flowing, well, if it's not,

(01:21:25):
then you know there's not a lot of water and
it doesn't look good on film. But luckily, halfway through
shooting down there, the rains came in and the rivers
went from like a Grade three, which is kind of
a medium level of rapid into like a Grade five,
which is big and chunky and scary, and yeah, there
was a lot of adrenaline.

Speaker 3 (01:21:44):
So what is it like being on a movie seat
with a star like Chullie's. They're on.

Speaker 18 (01:21:51):
Pretty cold actually, you know, I thought coming into it,
she's this a class Hollywood actor and she'd be really
precious and just kind of surrounded by her crew and
she had a close knit group of people. But she
was also really approachable, happy to have a chat, really
wanted to do well in her role as a peddler,
so asked a lot of questions and was working hard

(01:22:12):
to get things right. And she was definitely out of
her comfort zone and I just left kind of having
so much respect for her and her craft and yeah
what she does.

Speaker 3 (01:22:21):
Okay, so you were also there sort of part of
your role was coaching her through those kayaking scenes.

Speaker 18 (01:22:27):
Yeah, we had River and I as well as a
guy called Callen in Australia. We were all kind of
helping her. And yeah, we flew to Australia. I think
I was there four times, and each time, you know,
Challie's would be doing different aspects of kayaking on flatwater
or kind of low grade white water, and yeah, we'd
give her tips and help her find the right lines

(01:22:50):
and help her look like a natural paddler.

Speaker 3 (01:22:53):
And in turn, you had to have some coaching as well,
because while you're concentrating on probably you were probably thinking, right,
I'm just going to get down this canyan or whatever
I have to do, but act thing, you were required
to do some acting as well.

Speaker 18 (01:23:07):
I was, yeah, and that was actually one of my
favorite parts, just kind of getting you know, in kind
of Salem, you're a performer, but in a completely different sense.
And so yeah, I was learning from the director and
the stunt coordinator how to kind of act and how
they wanted me to look. And then I'd obviously do
the visualization and try and get myself into that kind

(01:23:29):
of mindset of either being chased or going for a
chill paddle down the rapids. And there are a few
other scenes where I had to do some swimming or
pretend to hit my head on a rock.

Speaker 12 (01:23:39):
So yeah, that was really cool.

Speaker 3 (01:23:41):
It's so funny because I've seen the film now and
I knew you. I knew you'd been the stunt double.
So when you watch the film and everyone else is
going to do this, now, I was going, okay, oh, okay,
that's Charlie's Okay, No, I think that that's Luca, or
that could be really like, Yeah, you watch it completely differently,
trying to go oh, these looks, Oh, that'll be her there, Oh,
that'll be you know, that's what she's doing. And I

(01:24:02):
assume it is a bit different because, as you say,
when you're at the Olympics, you're trying to nail your technique,
trying to perform, but here, actually you're fighting for your life,
so you're probably not quite so concerned about some of
those things.

Speaker 12 (01:24:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 18 (01:24:13):
And actually, like when you're paddling really well in Kenosalem
or in Whitewater, you're smooth and you're running the boat
and you're on top of the water.

Speaker 12 (01:24:22):
But that doesn't look good in a movie.

Speaker 18 (01:24:24):
And so I had to kind of undo a lot
of techniques and just plow through the middle of these
big features on the whitewater. And the more splashes and
the more drama and the more edges on the boat,
the better.

Speaker 3 (01:24:36):
So you have you watched the film, have you critiqued
your performance?

Speaker 18 (01:24:41):
Yeah, River and I got together and watched it, which
was it was really cool to watch it with her,
and we were comparing the different scenes that we did
and trying to pick each other out, which I'd say
eighty percent of it we were quite sure, but then
there were other parts that we just had no idea.

Speaker 12 (01:24:58):
But yeah, it was just really cool.

Speaker 18 (01:24:59):
I think to see whitewater kayaking on the big screen,
it is such a cool sport to watch, but it
doesn't get a lot of spotlight, I guess, and kind
of Hollywood or in films, So I think that was
a really special part.

Speaker 3 (01:25:14):
I imagine that. You know, when you're when you're training,
it's a lot about you. It's pretty low key. You're
probably working to a budget. You've already mentioned, you know,
you kind of got helicopped into these spots and things.
But what else was a little bit different in this
job when it came to your role as a kaiker.

Speaker 18 (01:25:33):
Oh, Like, we'd get packed out from our accommodation and
like a private shuttle and we'd arrive on set and
there'd be breakfast laid out for everyone, and then we'd
kind of get shuttled up to where we were actually
filming and there'd be a hot tent and be people
kind of wrapping you in a blanket. After you got
off the water and I don't know, fassing over your

(01:25:55):
hair and makeup and everything like that, and it just, yeah,
it was completely different. And I thought afterwards, I was like,
I could have done with a hot tent and some
of this my shagaya kin career.

Speaker 3 (01:26:08):
Yeah, it's a little bit of It's a different world,
isn't it. Yes, it probably sport you a little bit. Look, yes,
this is probably a bit of a neat thing that
you've done, this stunt role. But is it something that
you'd like to do again.

Speaker 12 (01:26:23):
I would love to have the opportunity came up.

Speaker 6 (01:26:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 18 (01:26:27):
I have a huge amount of respect for the stunt professionals.
You know, they're rolling down banks and jumping off things,
and you know, it's just a complete It's a profession
that now I know more about it, I have so
much respect them. But yeah, absolutely, if there's an opportunity
that comes up, I would jump on it.

Speaker 3 (01:26:47):
You're retired after the last Olympics in twenty twenty four,
and I'm assuming that this, as you've said, you know,
this sort of came out of the blue. This this
Hollywood work. But what has life been like since Paris?

Speaker 18 (01:27:00):
It has been to be honest, a bit of an adjustment,
you know, like you look forward to retiring because you've
spent your whole life doing this sport and it's all encompassing.
You know, there's even on a day off, you're still
thinking about how you're eating and sleeping and those sorts
of things. And so I enjoyed having a bit of downtime,
but then started to really mess a lot of aspects
of being a full time athlete and just having that

(01:27:22):
goal to chase and it's so clear and you're so
motivated towards it. I went into an office role where
sport babe plenty, trying to get more young girls active,
so trying to kind of stop the drop off in
sport participation as they go through teenage years, which has
been really cool and it's a really meaningful role, but

(01:27:45):
just very different being in an office.

Speaker 3 (01:27:47):
So then how do you find that fulfillment? How do
you find another little goal in life that kind of
keeps you going.

Speaker 18 (01:27:57):
I think, just like doing other activities that I was
never able to do. You know, when you're full time training,
you need to rest, and so you can't go hiking
and biking, surfing and doing all these other collectivities. So
I've kind of been doing that. My husband and I
have been renovating houses, what else. Yeah, just kind of

(01:28:18):
enjoying a bit of normality.

Speaker 3 (01:28:20):
Yeah, which is good, Which is great. So I wonder though,
whether the timing of this project was sort of perfect
for you, something a little out of the ordinary, to
remind you that there is still sort of a little
bit of excitement after sport.

Speaker 12 (01:28:32):
Yes, one hundred percent.

Speaker 18 (01:28:33):
Yeah, and it was cool and it shows that, like
outside of sport, there are other opportunities that can come
from sport. So yeah, that was really special.

Speaker 3 (01:28:42):
You mentioned before, you know how great it is to
see kayaking on the big screen and it does it
look spectacular? What about the sport? Where is the future
of canoe slala mat? Do we have some good talent
coming through.

Speaker 18 (01:28:57):
Yeah, We've obviously got Finn who's the Finn Medalist, and
behind him, yeah, we have some younger guys and girls
who are kind of knocking at the door. But you know,
it is really difficult coming from New Zealand. We're so
isolated to perform on the world stage in Penusulum, So
it's just about getting that exposure traveling overseas, doing a

(01:29:21):
lot of competitions, and yeah, I guess it takes a
lot of time. So if these young guys are patient
and they're happy to kind of stick with it and
you know, build up, then I think they'll do really well.

Speaker 3 (01:29:35):
Okay, Lucas. So if someone sits down this afterno inflects
on Netflix and decides to check out this little, this
action packed film, this after what stunt was your What
are you most impressed with? If there was a moment,
if you can quickly describe the scene for us so
that we can clock you in it. What was your
favorite stunt that you did?

Speaker 18 (01:29:55):
I think just the white water paddling. It was really
cool to just see it from different angles. So I'm
primarily the when she's in the red life jacket and
the blue helmet. That's primarily me so before things start
to kick off, and I won't ruin the film, but yeah,
those were kind of my primary scenes. But I think, yeah,
maybe the the hitting the head on the rock was

(01:30:18):
quite cool because it was just so different.

Speaker 3 (01:30:21):
I love it. Oh, thank you so much for your
time today. I really appreciate it. The film is such
fun and it's really nice to hear what you're up
to that was Luca Jones x Ley there and Apex
is available on Netflix now. It's a nineteen past eleven.

Speaker 18 (01:30:37):
Coming up.

Speaker 3 (01:30:37):
Next, we've got the panel.

Speaker 2 (01:30:39):
Grab we cover.

Speaker 1 (01:30:39):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudgin and Wiggles for
the best selections.

Speaker 2 (01:30:45):
Hu's talks'd be And it is.

Speaker 3 (01:30:47):
Time for the panel and today I am joined by
broadcaster and journalist Wilhelmina o'keith. Good morning, Wilhelmina, good morning,
and resident economist at Opie's Partners, Ed McKnight hied Francisca. Okay, So, Willamina,
we had ACT announce its immigration policy today. Anything stand
out to you? What were you initial thoughts?

Speaker 4 (01:31:07):
Yeah, initial thoughts.

Speaker 19 (01:31:08):
I think it addresses their concerns around, you know, pressures
on our infrastructure and welfare system. But I wondered whether
or not it was the right approach for success long term.
Obviously having those restrictions, especially with access to welfare and
not having access to WEFEY for that first five years,
it'll probably attract self sufficient, sort of economically motivated migrants,

(01:31:29):
people who are confident.

Speaker 4 (01:31:30):
That they won't need state support.

Speaker 19 (01:31:32):
But on the flip side, it could actually deter talent
in the transitional stages. So that's the likes of you know,
young professionals, entrepreneurs, people changing careers are people who value
that security in those early days and could actually end
up bringing longer term value to our economy. So I
think we kind of need to ask thisself as a question,
do we want people to come in for an immediate

(01:31:54):
economic impact or do we want people to come in
for that kind of longer term nation building, because in
that support early on I think could maybe be counterproductive.

Speaker 3 (01:32:03):
But that's really interesting, Willemina, because we do have two
problems to solve. We've got an immediate problem to solve,
which might be have we got enough workers, have we
got the right people? We need the impact that's having
on infrastructure, but you can't. Immigration is never in a silo.
It relates to absolutely everything else, from infrastructure to education,
to how a house systems coping to all sorts of things.
And you do need to have a long term population

(01:32:25):
policy in a sense, don't you.

Speaker 19 (01:32:27):
One hundred percent and being able to address those concerns
early on. Obviously, we are in a period of economic
stress at the moment, so we do need that kind
of little sugar hat and the right people right now
to help boast us, but also thinking about the long
term as well, not just being short sighted. I think
it's really important to be able to give people the
tools they need to potentially grow into a role and

(01:32:48):
grow into a career and a lifestyle that really benefits
us down the track.

Speaker 3 (01:32:51):
What are your thoughts, ed.

Speaker 20 (01:32:53):
Well, I agree around this welfare change in saying that
you can't get welfare for the first five years. I
take a slightly different view to Willelmina in that I
don't think any skilled migrant worth their soult would actually
care about not being able to get welfare. I wouldn't
have thought that it would be too much of a deterrent,
just because if you're coming in here, surely you've got

(01:33:13):
to be able to look out after yourself for the
first five years. The thing that I was more interested
in and caen to get some more details about, but
I couldn't find them online, was having stricter English language requirements. Now,
this is specifically for people who are coming in on
employer work fezas, but it kind of depends how strict
we're talking, right, because there are a number of good

(01:33:34):
new Zealanders who actually don't speak English particularly well. I
think about my own parents in law. They migrated here
probably about thirty over thirty years ago from Korea, but
they're English. Isn't that great? But they're still wonderful New
Zealanders who have always supported themselves add a lot to
their community because they've got a tight knit Korean community,
and Okay, it doesn't really matter that they're English. Isn't

(01:33:56):
that great? I know that in Auckland we've a similar
set up around some of our Chinese New Zealanders who
live in a Chinese based community might not speak particularly
good English, but hey, they're still great New Zealanders. So
I'm can you see some more details about that.

Speaker 3 (01:34:10):
It feels a reaction to a lot of anecdotal stories,
it doesn't it, And you get them from both sides,
just like you've got your story. But then I sort
of feel like politicians are off. I mean, you know,
someone said to me or someone said this to me,
and it just feels anecdotal as opposed to maybe someone
having a looking at the evidence at how it might

(01:34:30):
be impacting our productivity.

Speaker 20 (01:34:32):
Well, I just think it would probably surprise people how
varied and diverse. New Zealand is especially in different pockets, right.
I mean, if we think about how Wick in Auckland,
over fifty percent of residents there are Chinese, so that's
going to be a very different demographic and what's normal
and Howick is going to be very different from what's

(01:34:54):
normal in the west coast of the South Island for instance.

Speaker 9 (01:34:57):
No.

Speaker 3 (01:34:57):
Absolutely. What did you think about the infrastructure charge? So
you would be charging you know, if you have a
temporary work visa you're coming into do a job, you
would also be charged. You're paying tax already and you're
also being charged six dollars per day to cover infrastructure.
It's kind of a way of they call it, sort
of balancing things out a little bit, that you're contributing

(01:35:17):
to the impact on infrastructure. I couldn't quite work out
how long that would last. I didn't know whether what
point you said, Okay, you've ticked the box and contributed.
How does that sit with you?

Speaker 19 (01:35:29):
Wilhelmina, Yeah, look, on the surface, you know, six dollars
a day, it doesn't seem like too much, but it
obviously adds up over time.

Speaker 4 (01:35:35):
So I would be interested to know in terms of what.

Speaker 19 (01:35:37):
The parameters are Is there a minimum, you know, could
it just be a one off payment something along those lines.

Speaker 4 (01:35:45):
I can see the merit in it.

Speaker 19 (01:35:46):
Obviously, so much pressure on our infrastructure as it stands.
You know, there are things going on, but they're taking
a long time to get off the ground or be completed,
so I can understand, and that is obviously a main
concern for so many people.

Speaker 4 (01:35:58):
But I think there needs to be eventually a limitation.

Speaker 19 (01:36:02):
Right as you say that, it adds up over time,
so surely there should be fit, out of fairness, a.

Speaker 4 (01:36:07):
Cap on that as well.

Speaker 3 (01:36:09):
I sort of feel that whenever we're going into an
election year, one of the effective way for politicians to
get people's attention is to say we're going to take
a hard line on something. We're going to take a
hard line on gangs and crime, and we're going to
take a hard line on this. And in a way,
I think that's what actors doing here. They're saying, actually,
we're going to tighten up the laws that are already
in place. We are not you know, we're going to

(01:36:31):
deal with the overstayers. We're going to take a title
line there. We're going to you know, take a title
line on the English we're going to you know, deport
serious eventness. We're just going to take a title line.

Speaker 19 (01:36:41):
But no one.

Speaker 3 (01:36:42):
I still couldn't quite understand who the right people were,
who we were looking for, who we're looking for long term?
How do we deal with this issue we have in
New Zealand whereby we have a declining population, low fertility rates,
we've got an aging population. We need people to be
paying tax or we can afford superannuation and our health
system because of the burgeoning sort of aging crisis we're

(01:37:05):
heading into. At the same time, we don't want too
much immigration because then that is putting more pressure on
the infrastructure, in our health and things that we currently have.
There's this balance you have to fit and I don't
see any thoughtfulness really from any politicians because they only
want to deal with a three year cycle.

Speaker 20 (01:37:23):
And I suppose the other issue that you have when
it comes to politicians is they don't like throwing goals
out there because then they know they're going to be
held to them. And I think you're dead right that
we don't have well, what does the balance look like.
It's very easy to say that we don't currently have
the right balance. It is far, far, far more difficult
to come out and say well, this is what the

(01:37:43):
right balance looks like, which is actually why a few
years ago I thought Paula Bennett had it really right
when she came out and said, hey, I think that
Auckland needs to plan for being a population of two
and a half million. That's going to be our goal.
And I know some people are like, oh, what a
terrible goal to have, but I admired her for putting
a goal out there. The one thing I'd just say
about that six dollars a day infrastructure charge is it

(01:38:05):
actually struck me as quite high. About two two hundred
dollars a year that we're going to lump on people
coming in. It seemed quite high. And the reason I
was surprised was AX meant to be the party of
low taxes, and here you are wanting to levy what
is effectively a tax on you immigrants.

Speaker 3 (01:38:22):
Okay, I'm going to move on very quickly. I'm rung
out of time a little bit here. I'd love to
talk to you about Winston and the Prime Minister, because
I don't think there's anyone that thinks that Winston accidentally
leaked those emails that didn't make the Prime minister look great. Wilhelmina,
do you think the coalition is going to last out
the terms?

Speaker 19 (01:38:41):
Look, I think a lot of opposition parties are obviously
clearly gearing up for the fact that they won't. I
was watching the news last night and there were sound
bites from every person out of the Son who was
already door knocking, an anticipation of it. I think it
will probably last, but it's not going to be cohesive.
It's more transactional and obviously Winston Peters is playing his
own game well. Luxon tries to hold it together. We

(01:39:04):
saw that challenge of power, particularly of the last week
when Luxon went down to level seven of the b
Hive to speak to Winston as opposed to actually calling
him up to the night floor as prime ministers in
the past have done so. So there's a real kind
of challenge of the power. But it's very clearly lesser
United government. It's more three parties campaigning while still in power,

(01:39:24):
and Luxon i think just looks like he's managing, not
leading at the moment, and Winston will always offerate as
both insider and an outsider at the same time.

Speaker 3 (01:39:33):
Because I actually think that LUX has done a pretty
good job of giving the coalition together to date. What
would you do with Winston Peters?

Speaker 20 (01:39:41):
Oh God, that's so so far ahead of a pay grade.
I no, I've got no idea, I think, to be honest,
I think Winston Peters would be running loops around me
and running circles around me, and I'd have no idea
what I was doing, because he's a what wily old guy.
The one thing I'd say is I think that this
the coalition probably will last to the November election. The

(01:40:02):
reason I think that is that both National and New
Zealand First have it and incentive to keep it together.
Winston's doing so well in the polls, He's got momentum
behind him. I would imagine that he's hoping that that's
going to continue up into election day, and so the
longer he can hold on, then perhaps he'll rise even
further in the polls. For Nashville, I think they would

(01:40:22):
want to hold on as well, because if the coalition
falls over, then they can't really lay go out to
the voters and actually lock them in the eye and
say we're going to come back with New Zealand First again.
And we're going to be able to keep it together
this time right. So if they don't make it to
the election, I think that voters will really question whether

(01:40:42):
the coalition could continue for another three years.

Speaker 3 (01:40:45):
Will Amina Oh, Keith ed mc knight, enjoy the rest
of your Sunday. Thank you so much for your time today,
appreciate it. It is twenty seven to twelve. Coming up
next to Jason Pine.

Speaker 2 (01:40:58):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks B.

Speaker 3 (01:41:03):
It is time to talk sport with Jason Pine and
just to get you in the mood, have you listen
to this?

Speaker 6 (01:41:08):
Next up with.

Speaker 7 (01:41:10):
Melbourne City's seventh penalty He's Nathaniel Edkinson and Dan Hall,
who has never scored for Autrol FC and last scored
in December of.

Speaker 2 (01:41:27):
Twenty twenty three.

Speaker 8 (01:41:34):
INFC three time haleague means semi final in.

Speaker 6 (01:41:40):
The most drum fans n circumstances.

Speaker 3 (01:41:43):
What a way to build up a man never scored
since twenty twenty three. I mean, I'm really.

Speaker 2 (01:41:49):
Rubbing in the mockers on the mat.

Speaker 3 (01:41:52):
He'll never get it, he's never scored.

Speaker 21 (01:41:54):
No, I mean talking about composure from Dan Hall and
Michael Baud too, the say from Michael Baod the two
big moments of that shootout last night. You know, penalty
shootouts are unmatched. I reckon in sport for drama, for
emotion at every end of the spectrum afterwards. You know
the contrast between Auckland f C's absolute delirium and Melbourne

(01:42:14):
City's desolation. You know, the players sitting out there giving
it the thousand yards stair, a couple of them in tears,
you know, all over. But for Auckland f C. They
march on and heard you with Nick Becker earlier on
today and they now start planning for a home leg
of a semi final next Saturday.

Speaker 3 (01:42:30):
Very exciting, very exciting stuff and pretty pretty good game
from the Warriors last night too.

Speaker 21 (01:42:35):
It was it was yeah, caught, the caught the replay
of that having been it, I mean an ordinary circumstances, Francesca.
The fooball would have finished in time for me to
get back to watch the Warriors, but extra time prevented that,
so I had to I had to sort of watch
a replay and look, I was impressed. Four wins in
a row, it was quite even sort of midway through
the second half and then they kind of just you know,

(01:42:55):
ran away with it really with some really good tries
from Ford, from Carnperira, from Roger to i vasa chet.

Speaker 15 (01:43:03):
I mean, they're a good team.

Speaker 21 (01:43:04):
The Warriors they got to buy next week and then
check round in Brucebane where they faced the Broncos. That
will be a brilliant game of rugby league on the
Sunday of Magic Round.

Speaker 3 (01:43:13):
And because all you ever do in life is watch
sport and you never sleep or eat or do anything
like that, did you catch any of Miami.

Speaker 21 (01:43:20):
I've sort of, I mean only in passing. I've just
I've caught up with the fact that because i was
watching the snooker as well, so I've only got so many,
so many screens.

Speaker 15 (01:43:29):
The snooker was incredible, by the way.

Speaker 21 (01:43:31):
Oh oh, honestly, oh Francisco, you're you know, you're not
the first person to say, really kind of look down
your nose at me when I say it, But honestly,
you talk about drama of a penalty shootout, the drama
on the on the Green Bays and the Crucible and
Sheffield is almost as gripping. But yeah, no, I didn't
catch the didn't catch the entire race this morning. As

(01:43:52):
I say, I heard that that that Liam's got a
bit of work to do. I think he's qualified twelfth
for the race tomorrow, fourteenth in the sprint race, so
hasn't gone his way so far, but twelf it's not
bad for the main race to and Miami makes up
a couple of spots and gets into point two.

Speaker 3 (01:44:09):
Knows what have you got coming up on the show today?
Are you going please try and convince me that snooker
is offend?

Speaker 6 (01:44:14):
No, no, I do have some.

Speaker 21 (01:44:15):
Snooker on this afternoon, but no. We're leading off with
Steve Corricer, coach of Auckland FC. I mean, how did
he go last? I mean, the coach, you can't do
anything right. You just got to stand there and watch
like the rest of us. You just got to have
faith in your players as they walk up to the
spot for the penalty shootouse age on the show. Julian
Save are also going to join us this afternoon to
reflect on his career and got a couple of Harlem

(01:44:36):
Globe trotters live in studio as well.

Speaker 3 (01:44:38):
Fantastic looking forward to it. Jason, Thank you so much
for your time today. Jason will be back at Midday
with Weekend.

Speaker 1 (01:44:44):
Sport, The Sunday Session Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio powered
by News TALKSB Travel with Wendy Woo tours Where the
World Is Yours book?

Speaker 2 (01:44:55):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:45:11):
So King Charles was in New York this week, Well
so was our travel correspondent Meghan Singleton, and she joins me, now,
good morning.

Speaker 10 (01:45:20):
Good morning.

Speaker 22 (01:45:21):
Well Kinder, I thought I should tie in King Charles's
visit because he popped into Harlem as I had done
over Easter when I first went up. Do you remember
I told you that I was headed off to the
Gospel Church for Easter Sunday.

Speaker 12 (01:45:35):
Yeah, well ask me how that went?

Speaker 6 (01:45:36):
How did that go?

Speaker 4 (01:45:37):
Meghan?

Speaker 22 (01:45:39):
Well, what I didn't know, Francesca, is that you need
to register. And so we got there, we went all
the wa out to Harlem and they were turning people away.
So Abysinnian Baptist has been going since like the eighteen hundreds.
It's got several thousand members. And of course, what was
I thinking. Easter Sunday is going to be the most
significant day on their calendar. Isn't it a side of

(01:46:00):
Christmas Day? So I don't even know that you could register.
So sadly, we were turned away, and we went and
got the subway, and I turned my frown upside down
and we had a day of serendipity, and off we
went on the subway down to Central Park, where I
found some blossom trees, which was my next quest, and

(01:46:22):
then we actually ended up having a lovely day and
we ended up going to the Yankees game after all,
even though it was gloomy and rainy and it had
been rain delayed, but I chose my attitude and we
enjoyed the met. Now wouldn't have gone to the Met
had I gone to church and had it not been raining.
So this is what does happen on days of serendipity.

Speaker 3 (01:46:42):
Can you tell me about Little Island?

Speaker 22 (01:46:45):
Little Island is it's been created. It's four acre part
space created on what looked like wineglasses popping out of
the Hudson River. So it's down near Chelsea, near the
high line, so you can sort of walk the high
line after you've done Little Island. Look, it's been on
my bucket list for a while.

Speaker 4 (01:47:05):
It's not that old, but.

Speaker 22 (01:47:06):
They outdoor events and things there, and it had blossom trees.
But I just really wanted to see it because it's
so unique and if you've seen pictures of it, it
really does look super quirky. And it's just another green
space in New York, which they're actually very good at doing.
And then they've got, of course their live events and
their free you know, summer concerts and things like that.

Speaker 6 (01:47:26):
That they do.

Speaker 3 (01:47:27):
So that's a really great I've got a photo up.

Speaker 12 (01:47:30):
It's bizarre.

Speaker 3 (01:47:31):
So it's all man made it. So they've literally created
this space as you say, that's got sort of it's
sort of undulating and it's up on high these sort
of high wine glasses at some point and lowered others.

Speaker 22 (01:47:42):
Yeah, but it spreads across four acres.

Speaker 16 (01:47:45):
Oh okay, oh yes, look at it.

Speaker 3 (01:47:48):
Interesting. So it's got a sort of a little amphitheater
in there as well that looks out over the river,
which is amazing, and lots of the sort of art
and of course they're very good at doing these kind
of spaces. This is what we need to doing with
when you're caught and Auckland, we need to be I mean,
we're sort of being a little bit more adventurous down there,
but they do that. Gosh, this is incredible.

Speaker 22 (01:48:08):
Yes, I know that I don't think we'd be able
to build something like that in our harbors. But anyway,
that's another story. Hey, subways are easy to get around.
You just tap your own credit card or your debit
card and you're on.

Speaker 4 (01:48:19):
You go through.

Speaker 22 (01:48:19):
You don't have to buy the local subway card anymore.

Speaker 4 (01:48:23):
So yeah, that is.

Speaker 22 (01:48:24):
Really got easy.

Speaker 4 (01:48:25):
I just love New York.

Speaker 22 (01:48:26):
And you can only do small chunks at a time
because you do walk twenty thousand steps a day. And
even then you're like, oh, I didn't get to Brooklyn,
and I didn't get to East Side, and I didn't
get to you know, down the Bottom Battery Park. But
next time, there's always going to be next time. It's
not going anywhere.

Speaker 3 (01:48:40):
But whenever I talked to about New York, you often
say to me, and I'm sort of surprised that you
hadn't thought about the church service and how busy that
could be, and that you might have to book, because
you're very good at telling us in advance the things
that you kind of need to book for, that you
might need to do for.

Speaker 2 (01:48:55):
But there was nothing on their website.

Speaker 22 (01:48:57):
And I had gone on to the website several times
to see what the time the service was and I
couldn't see anything, and even today I thought, I'm going
to double check.

Speaker 3 (01:49:06):
There'll be a little bit of feedback on the website now.
But little things like Allen's Stardust Diner normally has a
line down the street and it's really hard to get into.
Did you manage to get in there?

Speaker 22 (01:49:19):
We did because it was actually quite close to our hotel.
So it's a very quirky diner where the staff are
like Broadway singers, So they're walking around with a roaming microphone,
singing Broadway hits or Ebba songs or whatever while they're
taking your money, taking the check.

Speaker 12 (01:49:37):
Signing things off.

Speaker 22 (01:49:38):
But they're singing, and there's like a little like a
boardwalk sort of what do you call it, like catwalk
in between the dining tables. So they climb up the stairs,
they walk the catwalk, they do some moves, twirk away,
get back down off the stage, carry on, take a
plate out to the kitchen, and it's just bizarre.

Speaker 4 (01:49:54):
And really really fun.

Speaker 22 (01:49:56):
So because there was no line, I thought, I said
to my husband, right, we're going in, and he was like,
what when you.

Speaker 3 (01:50:02):
Said that they were roving with a microphone, I thought, oh, no,
not audience participation. They are yeah, no, no, not at all.

Speaker 22 (01:50:10):
They are the quality singers they've brought. They are amazing singers,
and they suddenly just just burst into song from wherever
they're walking from the kitchen to pick up a plate
to take it somewhere, and they're singing.

Speaker 3 (01:50:21):
I feel like you did a lot of quirky things
this time. I mean I know that you know, as
you said, you went to the met and you went
to MoMA. Where is the best view? Is Empire State
Building the best spot to head to.

Speaker 22 (01:50:34):
I prefer top of the rock because I like to
look at the Empire State Building in my skyline view.
And so from the obviously the Empire State Building you
don't see all the buildings are a little bit boring.
But when you're on the top of the Rockefeller Center
and you are looking at the Empire State Building, that's
a great photo op right there. And then in the
other direction you're looking at Central Park.

Speaker 4 (01:50:55):
So I prefer that.

Speaker 22 (01:50:57):
And again, I had one of these Goho City passes
and I've chosen just three things quite cool. As I
got near them, they popped up say oh, you're right
beside MoMA, like oh gosh, and we went. So I
quite again, sarahen diipity. I hadn't rebooked my Top of
the Rock tickets either. I went into this little pass
See when's the next thing? Oh? Ten minutes time, right,
that's us up, we'll go. So that was how my

(01:51:20):
days in New York unfolded.

Speaker 3 (01:51:22):
Well, I have a lot of fomo, so thank you
very much for that, Meccan. Look forward to catching up
with you next week.

Speaker 1 (01:51:29):
It is twelve to twelve Books with Wikeles for the
best selection of great Reads.

Speaker 3 (01:51:37):
Joan mackenzie, head book bar at Wickles joins me. Now,
good morning. Hello, Okay, let's start with Yesteryear by Carrol
Claire Burke.

Speaker 4 (01:51:45):
This is terrific.

Speaker 23 (01:51:46):
It is a trad wife story, and a lot of
listeners will know about the tradwife movement that's been sweeping
parts of the world recently. In this novel, Natalie Hallam
Mills drifts into marriage with a guy who's a bit
of a loser, and she finally manages to get his father,
her father in law, sorry, his father, to fund them

(01:52:08):
onto a remote ranch in Idaho, where they raise a
brood of kids and embrace a traditional way of life,
and she sends it all via Instagram to her rapidly
increasing audience, who all watch and marvel at the way
that she manages to live this extraordinarily traditional life in
the middle of nowhere and do everything and still stay sane.
But I loved the side eye that she's got on

(01:52:30):
herself in this book, because she gives comments and decides,
and she shows this rage to the reader that you know,
she knows that you know about and it's all just
for show. It's really clever. And then one morning she
wakes up and it's eighteen fifty five and she's been
sent back into the world that she's claiming to currently

(01:52:51):
represent in the modern age, and she's there with a
brood of kids that she can hardly relate to. She's
got the really hard work of the nineteenth century to
deal with, and a husband who's even less use than
he was before. I couldn't put it down. I loved
the commentary she gives the reader as she goes through
these two kinds of lives that she has. It's very,
very clever, and I didn't see the end coming, but

(01:53:13):
with retrospect, I probably should have.

Speaker 3 (01:53:15):
It reminds me that I cannot remember the name of
the title. That fantastic book that the woman wrote about
the time travel and how we brought people from the
past to the future in the Ministry of Time. Yes, Yes,
Time brilliant Yeah yeah yeah. And the latest from the
fabulous Patrick rad and Keith London Falling.

Speaker 23 (01:53:32):
He is a whit Call's favorite. I hope that a
lot of listeners have read Empire of Pain. I just
want to say, if you haven't, you really should. This
new one is extraordinary. It's about the life and death
of a young nineteen year old London man called Zach Brettler,
who really wanted to have more than he had, and
he wanted to be more than he was. He came

(01:53:53):
from a pretty well off family. They went wealthy, but
he started putting it about that he was the son
of a Russian oligarch and as a result he got
into a lot of very bad company. And one night
I was caught on footage from CCTV cameras which am
I six have on the outside of their building alongside

(01:54:14):
the Thames. These cameras caught images of this young man
pacing a balcony on a high end apartment block just
across the river, and eventually throwing himself over the side
into the river, which was a fall that he did
not survive, and the police weren't interested and said, well
it was clearly a case of suicide. But when Patrick

(01:54:34):
Radden Keith got involved, which he did by meeting some
family members at a party in London purely coincidentally, and
he started to investigate. He found that the way that
the Oligarchs and the Russians have been able to infiltrate UK,
particularly London society, without any guard rails or safeguards for
the local people, and how the institutions and the people

(01:54:57):
who should have been the adults in the room and
the guys in charge simply failed the society. It's fascinating.

Speaker 3 (01:55:03):
Thank you so much, Joe. Those two books we used
to year by Carow Clear Burke and London Falling by
Patrick Raden Keith.

Speaker 1 (01:55:11):
The Sunday Session Full show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by
News TALKSB.

Speaker 3 (01:55:18):
Thank you so much for watching the show. Stay lovely
to have you with us. Thank you so much to
Carrie and Locke for producing for me today. Very much
appreciate that next week on the show, Morgan morgana o'reiley
is going to be with us. She did this fantastic
theater show called Stories about My Body. Well she's turned
it into a film, and my goodness, I've learned an
awful lot about morgana and her body. But we're going

(01:55:39):
to be having a chat to her about that next week.
And also Tax Society has written a fabulous memoir the
comedian all about the most embarrassing moments in his life.
So I'm very much enjoying having a laugh at it
is expense at the moment as I get through that.
So they're going to be with us next.

Speaker 4 (01:55:55):
Week on the show.

Speaker 3 (01:55:57):
Of course, coming up next Jason Pine with Weekend Sport,
and we're finishing with Castle on the Hill by Ed
Sheeran because Auckland FC fans are the only football fans
celebrate today. Over in the UK, Ipswich Town have been
promoted back to the Premier League after a season in
the Championship and I'm told by my producer Lot that
this is very big news, very exciting, so well done

(01:56:18):
to Ipswitch down. They've made locks Day Insurance owns part
of the team, so that's why we're playing his music. Hey,
thanks so much for listening. Look forward to your company
next Sunday Take Care.

Speaker 4 (01:56:31):
Country When we did not know the answer.

Speaker 1 (01:57:06):
Out For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin,
Listen live to News Talks it B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio

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