Full Show Podcast: 10 May 2026

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 selection of great
reeds used Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Good morning and welcome to the Sunday Session. I'm FRANCISCOBUDCN
with you until midday. Happy Mother's Day to all the
mums out there. Hope you receive plenty of gratitude and
love today. Coming up on the show and the laughs
after ten, I'm joined by comedian and author Pax Society.
Pax is one of New Zealand's most exciting comedic voices.
He's a stand up comedian. He's all over the tally.

(00:48):
You will have seen him on show It's Like Seven
Days and Taskmaster. He's also the man behind the critically
acclaimed comedy series Raised by Refugees. He's just released a memoir.
It's called Mortified and it features the many, many embarrassing
moments in his life and Tax joins me to talk
through what he's learnt about life and himself from these
mortifying moments. After eleven, actress and writer MORGANA. O'Reilly joins us.

(01:10):
We've spoken to Morgana over the years about her various
film and TV roles on shows such as The White
Lotus and playing Gracie Darling. But today we're going to
talk about the critically acclaimed one woman play that she's
written a while ago, Stories About My Body. She wrote
and developed it herself, and it's now been turned into
a film and it's going to screen as part of
the International Comedy Festival. So we're going to talk nudity,

(01:31):
bodies and aging after eleven, and of course, as always,
you're most welcome to text any time throughout the morning.
Ninety two ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Two for Sunday session.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
I can't wait to get onto Auckland CRL. I can't
wait to check out the overly grand stations, and I
can't wait to experience in moving around our city in
a way residents of other modern cities around the world
have been doing for decades. More So, I can't wait
to see if it does what it intended to do,
transform the city's rail network from a one way cul
de sac into a two way through system designed to

(02:03):
double the network's capacity and improve accessibility across the region.
It has been a monster of a ride getting this
underground railway build. And yes it's cost a bundle, but
I was intrigued this week that those most vocal about
the decision making and the costs are the people responsible
for the project. Good on former CRL boss Sean Sweeney

(02:25):
for coming out and calling it how he sees that
we need people with experience expressing views on how we
do things in this country. Sweeney oversaw the CRL and
its many costs, increases and associated challenges for six years
and admits he would do things differently if he had
his time again. He feels the main issue with the
CRL was that it was overspecified. It's not just the CRL.
He also thinks the christ Chich Stadium could have been

(02:47):
built for less as much as Cantabrians are enjoying the stadium.
I'm sure there are many who feel the same way
the building infrastructure. It's a bit like building a house
or buying a house. I should say, when you buy,
you're convinced you're being ripped off, and then seventy ten
years later you're generally pretty happy with the price and
the capital gain. And I'm sure that over the next
ten twenty one hundred years will feel pretty pleased with

(03:09):
ourselves for future proofing these investments. A platform long enough
to cope with extra train carriages in anticipation of Auckland's
population growth, and a roof on christ Churchards Stadium. Infrastructure
and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop took the opportunity to reinforce
National's fiscally responsible stance by ordering a review into the
build while trying to stay positive about a project which

(03:32):
opens on his watch. It was a bit of a
headline grab, an effort to look proactive in a response
to criticism. But anything that costs five point five billion
and was difficult and as disruptive as a CRL has
been should be reviewed and learnt from, preferably before we
launch into a second harbor crossing. Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown

(03:54):
also piped up expressing his long held view that on
the cost of the CRL, saying the project was set
up poorly and he would take a tougher approach to projects.
But weirdly, I don't hear Auckland is talking about it
the same as those who were or are involved in it.
Remember the city Rate City Rail Link Limited was formed
between the National Government and Phil GoF led Auckland Council

(04:15):
in twenty seventeen to jointly fund and oversee it through
to completion. Both local and central government are responsible for
this project. While the CRL has been a torturous affair,
especially for those living, working, or trying to run a
business around its construction, most locals just want it to open,
for it to make a fundamental change to how we

(04:37):
get around our clogged up city and can't wait to
give it a try. Spending two billion more on the
CRL is worth a discussion, but maybe we need to
keep it in perspective. Superannuation currently costs the country over
twenty four billion annually and it's estimated by Treasury to
cost over forty five billion in ten years. The reluctance
of political parties to thoughtfully address this over the years

(04:57):
is neglectful. So enjoy the fancy and the structure where
you can. There's unlikely to be much more of it
on the way.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
The Sunday session.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
You might as welcome to share your thoughts. Ninety two
to ninety two. Now, look, we did invite the Finance
Minister on the show today to talk about Winston Peter's
budget leak on Friday afternoon in regards to the end
of the fees free scheme for university students. She declined,
reading between the lines, I'm not sure how happy she
is about this leak. The first rule about the budget

(05:31):
is you never leak the budget anyway. Up next we
are going to look at how it will affect students
and potentially universities. And also this how we're going to
hear to the UK to find out just how damaging
the local elections have been for care Starmer and his government.
Your News Talks it'd be It is twelve past nine.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Sunday with Style the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and
Windles for the Best Election of Great Reeds.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
News Talks Edvy.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
It is fifteen past nine. The government has announced that
it will scrap the fees free scheme for UNI students.
Finance Minister Nichola Willis confirmed that it would be binned
in the next budget, but she only said that after
Winston Peters leaked the information to News Talks being Willis
initially said she was king to chop it, but it
was blocked by Peters. And here is what he said
to hear the duplicity Allen on Friday, any moment, now

(06:23):
here we go. Nope, we don't have it anyway. I
think it is safe to say that the fractures within
the coalition are still growing. Let's just leave it at that,
shall we. Let's hear from the students. Aidan donahue is
the president of the Victoria University Willington Studio Association, and
he joins me, Now, good morning, Aiden.

Speaker 4 (06:44):
Good morning.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
How do you feel about this?

Speaker 5 (06:49):
Gobsmacked is in one word to described how not only me,
but all students are feeling about this quick, rapid change.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
What else the students saying? What else are they've been
talking to you about?

Speaker 5 (07:00):
They feel that the rug's been pulled out from underneath them.
Students who have started this year and last year have
been told that there is the promise of, you know,
some form of fees free, and with all the changes
from first last year and now, it's looking very unlikely
that they will be able to get that.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
Do you expect to see students drop out in the
first or second year of their degree after this announcement?

Speaker 5 (07:20):
Look, I think it'll be a pressure point for students.
We're not knowing that they'll have you know, up to
twelve thousand dollars more debt at the end of the road.
So if I was in that decision, you know, making
that decision at the time, I would.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Obviously. You know, this is something which has been spoken
about a lot. A lot of people have called a
waste will spend and we sort of had an inkling
that it could be on the horizon. What have you
preferred though, that they at least covered students who have
who are currently at university.

Speaker 5 (07:50):
I think at a bare minimum. You know, National didn't
cut it in the first instance. They changed it, so
they must have put some value on it. So for
those students who you know, did in twenty twenty four
and aren't finishing this year, you know, engineering or law,
they won't be able to get it. Majors, conjoint degrees,
all of them will be you know, left out on
the cold.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
It's interesting you say that, because what I've been hearing
from students over the last few days is that they're
reconsidering things like a double degree or post grade study.
They're going to get in and get out. That's the plan.

Speaker 5 (08:22):
Yeah, definitely, and probably get in and get out straight
to Australia is what I'd say that's going.

Speaker 6 (08:26):
To get to that.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Do you think that the universities will be concerned about this?

Speaker 5 (08:31):
Absolutely? For students to be doing it so tough, the
universities have had to put a lot and towards, you know,
supporting them with hardship funding and et cetera. So I
think for universities it's a whole nother brings up the
question of their funding model entirely.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
But we're pretty excited this year though, I think that
seven out of eight New Zealand universities had sort of
the highest roles that they'd had in a long time,
or an increase in their roles. Do you think that
you know that's going to be reversed.

Speaker 5 (08:58):
The It certainly won't be increased from domestic A lot
of those increases have been from international students, and you know,
after what the lessons we've learned from COVID just seem
to have haven't taken in Okay, what kind of lessons Well,
when we rely on international students so much because they pay,
you know, multiple times the fees, you know, if there

(09:18):
is ever a crisis where we can't have international students,
the funding for universities all of a sudden becomes untenable.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
Okay. So if it's potentially less students heading to the university,
could that mean arise in university fees for some courses.

Speaker 5 (09:34):
The money's got to come from somewhere if it's not
coming from the total students. So unless there's more from
central I don't see any other choice for universities but
to grace fees for those remaining.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
Okay, aidn talk me through some of the challenges facing
students financially at present.

Speaker 5 (09:49):
Well, the cost of living is hitting us as hard
as low income earners. Naturally, there's huge opportunity costs that
we can't work full time while also staying so energy, heating, groceries, fuel,
those are all just compounding on students as they try
and better themselves.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
And getting a part time job seems to be a
lot trickier at the moment.

Speaker 5 (10:10):
Yes, speaking from Wellington, it is certainly a mission and
a half. There's hundreds of applications for you know, single jobs,
and there's not many jobs that can accommodate for you know,
the flexibility of use needs or that hours outside of hours.
So for students it's very competitive market to find a
job while studying. But also after studying it's just as hard.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
The other thing I'm saying is, you know, when you've
got areas like you can't bring in a tigo. Those
universities have sort of become very popular of the last
few years. There's a huge demand on the flats. The
price of flats. The increase has just blown me away
from one hundred and fifty dollars up to two hundred
and thirty dollars for some flats.

Speaker 5 (10:50):
Yeah, exactly, And it's not like their quality has improved
by that much either. We all know famously the needing
flats and what they're like. So for students it's you know,
what to you forego to have one basic necessity.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
So you just touched on this before. We've got large loans,
there's fewer great jobs around. Are you expecting more graduates
will look to head overseas to pay off their loans,
even if it means they're paying interest.

Speaker 4 (11:15):
Absolutely.

Speaker 5 (11:15):
I mean it doesn't take some mathematics degree to realize
that if you're getting more than the five point six
percent interest overseas, that it's more raal decisions to try it,
like in a market over there, to get a job.
If it's very tough to find one here.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Are you concerned that this is the first step to
remove interest free from the loans?

Speaker 5 (11:34):
Honestly, it's anything's possible. There was no indication that this
was on the cards, you know, last year with the changes,
So we're all very concerned what this means. If they're
willing to make changes to a pees coalition departments.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
It's been hinted that trades and other sectors will get
some kind of fee assistance. How do you feel about this?

Speaker 5 (11:53):
Look, I think that's fair enough. This both you know,
vocational learning and tertiy education are valuable and are needed
for this country. But you know tradese and apprentices are
paid to be there will students pay to study? So
it is a balance act.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Okay. So with you've already outlined some of the financial
difficulties that students are up against. Where else do you
think that the government should be looking to cut costs.

Speaker 5 (12:14):
In Look, there's there's there's multitude of areas. You know,
for example, reinstating the full interest deductions original that's that's
three billion right there. The cost of the fairies was
six hundred and seventy one million. You know, it's projected
that final years three three would have cost two hundred
and twenty three million by twenty twenty eight twenty nine.

(12:36):
So you know the Fairies deal, that's three years of
funding right there. Property the interest deductions that's thirteen years.
The tunnel four you know MPs to get to Warrington
Airport FUS so that's three billion right there. That's not
thirteen years of funding that could have come.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
From Aiden Donahue. Thank you so much for your time.
Appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
The Sunday session over.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
To the UK now where thanks are getting worse for
the Prime Minister. On top of the Menelsten Saga, Sukiir
Starmer has led to the Labor Party to a spectation
loss in the local elections. They've lost Whales, one of
the most secure areas. Meanwhile, Reform have picked up one thousand,
four hundred and fifty council seats, which is pretty impressive

(13:18):
to tell us more. UK correspondent in the Brady joins me, now,
good morning.

Speaker 7 (13:23):
Good morning, Francesca, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
Okay sum up the outcome of the election for me.

Speaker 7 (13:30):
So I think what we're seeing really is a splintering
of UK politics. Left right is gone, the center has
kind of collapsed, and we're seeing people looking for alternatives
and a lot of people are looking towards Reform UK
and Nigel Farage and I think it's very very bad
news for Keir Starmer. So we're seeing Labor lose approximately

(13:54):
twelve hundred council seats across England. They've fared really badly
in the Scottish parliamentary elections and the Welsh Senate as well.
Labor have lost Wales to Pliedcumery, which is the Welsh
Nationalist Party, and ultimately the knives are now out for
Here Starmer. The clock is ticking.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
So why the switch and support? Is it a vote
against Labor or a vote for reform?

Speaker 7 (14:20):
I think it's absolutely a vote against Labor against Here Starmer.
People don't know who he is, people don't know what
he stands for. Nothing has changed. I mean we're coming up,
you know, this summer will mark two years of him
being in power, and there's no hope. He hasn't offered hope,
he hasn't delivered the change people wanted. And I think

(14:42):
there's an immense frustration out there. Cost of living crisis.
Energy here is getting more and more expensive, life is
getting more expensive and here Starmer. You know, I think
fundamentally he's a good man, he's a decent human being,
but he's not a politician. He is a lawyer. He's
a human rights lawyer. He takes a long time to
make a decision. And Nigel Farage is putting himself there

(15:06):
is a really kind of you know, snappy, snappy guy
who is going to make change quickly, and Starmer has
just fallen by the wayside. So I think what we're
seeing now is the beginning of the end of the
Starmer era, such as it was.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
And then, of course is the question how much longer
he's got his city takes responsibility. He's aware of the
state that Labor's in. After the election, he said it's
time to reflect and respond whatever that means. But has
he done.

Speaker 7 (15:34):
Yeah, Look he's toast today. He has invited in Gordon Brown.
They had a meeting at Downing Street. Gordon Brown was
Prime Minister from after the Blair years up until the
Cameron era arrived, and he's given Gordon Brown a government position,
a special Envoy for Global Finance. He's also brought in
Baroness Harrius Harmon. She is a Labor grandee of old

(16:00):
and he's bringing back really kind of old figures from
labor thinking that they can ignite the future. And it's bad.
It is not in any way good or positive or
forward looking. And I think what we're going to see
now is death by a thousand cuts and people slowly
putting their hand up and saying, you know what.

Speaker 4 (16:21):
I can lead a labor party.

Speaker 7 (16:23):
If you get him out and get me in, I
can get you a victory in three years time.

Speaker 4 (16:27):
Ah.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
But that is the question, isn't it. I mean, you
only get rid of a leader if there is another
really good one, an obvious one really to step up,
is there?

Speaker 7 (16:38):
So you got three figures to look out for. The
Health Secretary west streeting he's got the numbers already. His
people are briefing journalists saying that he has the numbers
to move against the Prime minister. You've got Angela Reiner,
former Deputy Prime Minister. Her people are saying that she
too has the numbers. And then you've got this kind
of dark horse in Andy Burnham, currently Mayor of Manchester,

(17:01):
not even a member of parliament. He will have to
get into Parliament and then start making moves. They are
the three kind of figures to watch out for. But
I think we're watching the end of days here for
ker Starmer.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
We are.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
I see that m P Catherin wished to see that
she'll seek to trigger a leadership contest if a cabinet
minister doesn't launch a challenge to the Prime Minister by manday.
Do you think that's likely?

Speaker 7 (17:23):
Yeah, so, look, she might be able to trigger a challenge.
She has no hope whatsoever. The public don't know who
she is. They know who Wes Streeting is because he's
the Health Secretary, they know who Rayner is because she
was formerly Deputy Prime Minister. And Andy Burnham has a very
high profile gig in being Mayor Manchester. But look, Catherine
West ain't gonna kill care Starmer. The other three will

(17:46):
this election.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
It looks like a big shift away from the two
big parties system, which we're seeing him ening in various
places around the world.

Speaker 7 (17:55):
Yes, massively so. And I think what we're seeing right
now is the fragmentation of UK politics. And you have
Nigel fas you know very I would say, look, as
much as some people love him, an awful lot of
people hate him. He is the most consequential British politician
of this century. He was fundamentally responsible for Brexit. But

(18:17):
as someone said to me recently, can you believe they're
going to put the guy who burnt the house down
back in charge of the new house. And that's where
we're at.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
The irony of it is is that Nigel Faraj is
the establishment. He's probably one of the longest politicians around
and yet he's managed to present himself as this new option,
the new choice.

Speaker 8 (18:39):
Yes.

Speaker 7 (18:40):
Look, he's very very middle class, privately educated, worked as
a hedge fund manager. He's a multimillionaire. There are questions
over his finances. There was an allegation recently of five
million pounds sterling that's approximately ten million en Z dollars
being paid for his private security by a British multimillionaire

(19:04):
living in Thailand. That was not the There's a lot
of questions about Farage, but he's a great communicator and
when you walk down the streets, look, I travel around
the UK, I would probably say I see more of
the UK than the Prime Minister does. People come up
to me, they want to talk about what's going on
and how their lives are and how things need to change.

(19:26):
Starmer needs to get out there. He needs to start
speaking to real people, and he needs to start offering
hope because right now, I think a lot of people
are just looking at the world right now, energy pricing,
cost of living crisis, and they don't see any hope
and they blame him for it.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
Do you think that, you know, obviously Reformed the biggest winner,
But does that necessarily mean that the British people want
to see Nigel Farage's prime minister.

Speaker 7 (19:52):
I'm not sure. I mean, he's got a lot of
ideas and he wants to clamp down on migration into
the UK. He has some very strange views on a
lot of things. I mean, some people have accused him
of being pro Putin or Russia friendly. He's certainly not
massively pro Ukraine. We know that much. He's got some

(20:13):
strange views. He's a very charismatic man. He's intelligent, he's
a great communicator, and I think labor need to realize
that there now in the fight of their lives. We've
got three years until the next general election, so you
can consider this kind of like a midterm moment to borrow,
you know, from American politics, and I think what we're

(20:36):
seeing now Ultimately, next parliament will be a hung parliament
and a two can build the best coalition. And if
I was Leader of Labor right now, I'd be out
there fixing the National Health Service, getting people doctor's appointments,
fixing the potholes, stopping migrants coming across illegally in Dinghies
from France, and you know, just making life a little

(20:59):
bit more livable for people from this country who feel
so so forgotten and downtrodden.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
End of Brady. As always, thank you so much for
your time this morning.

Speaker 7 (21:10):
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
It is nine point thirty. Thank you for your text.

Speaker 6 (21:13):
As well.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
As a self employed taxpayer, I'm over paying for all
the beneficiaries whom some contribute nothing to society. I'm tired
of paying for students to go to You need too
many going to do degrees that are meaningless. Thank you
for your thoughts this morning. We're up next we're going
to talk local politics. It's twenty nine to ten.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks
at b.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
And joining me now is New Zealand Herald political editor
Thomas Conklan.

Speaker 4 (21:44):
Good morning, Good morning, So we've.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Got a budget coming up at the end of the month,
and the number one rule about the budget is you
don't leak the budget. Would that be fair to say?
I mean, I mean sometimes sometimes we get fed little announcements,
don't we buy the finance minister when they have the
opportunity to control the narrative and the messaging around it.
How do you think the Finance Minister's feeling about Winston

(22:08):
Peters leaking the Phea three news on Friday.

Speaker 9 (22:12):
I think the polite way of putting how she's feeling
would be not very happy. The number one rule, the
number zero rule, the number the number one, two, three,
four and five rules of the budget is that you
do not leak the budget. And yes, you're right. Occasionally
before the budget the Finance Minister and the Senior Minister
will put out what they call a pre budget announcement.
That's a very orchestrated way of drawing people's attention to

(22:34):
something and say, look, we're going to feed you something
a week before the budget. Just to focus on this.
On Friday, Winston Peters did something that was very much
not that he was speaking to here the duplus Yellen
doing an interview and he basically just came out and said, look,
I'll give you a budget leak. He used the words
budget leak, and he said that the fees free policy
was gone. And it appears from our conversations and with

(22:55):
the beehive on Friday night that that was not pre order,
a pre authorized by the Finance Minister or anyone else.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
I've had I've had a text here. I made the point,
you know, I wonder what this says about sort of
how this captain's going to hold themselves together for the
next six months, because we'd all they are still in government,
we'd like them to get on and get some things done.
I had a text from Craig who said, these aren't
cracks in the coalition as it's been reported. It's just
a product of MMP an election years. Each party tries
to stake their claim to supporters to their supporters. Is

(23:26):
that a fair call or actually, is this a bit naughty?

Speaker 9 (23:30):
I think I think both those things can be true.
At the same time. I think everyone's aware that this
is a wee bit of EMMP game playing.

Speaker 4 (23:36):
People are sort of testing the water.

Speaker 10 (23:37):
Seeing how far they can go.

Speaker 9 (23:39):
And I think before the government was formed, everyone knew well,
like as you go into the next election in election
year twenty twenty six, the parties are going to become
a bit more combative with each other. That's just sort
of normal. On this issue. I think giving away part
of the budget ahead of time before it before a

(24:00):
large part of the budget hasn't even gone to keep
it yet, so as being agreed in stages, so as
it I think this possibly crosses the line. It certainly
if it were any other minister, they would be in
line for being sacked. If we're a National Party minister
that went out on the radio and said, look, I'll
just give you a bit of the budget, they might
very well be sacked. It is a seckable efense. But

(24:23):
obviously you can't do that with the leader of a
coalition party.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Tomas, give me your thoughts on this council amalgamation. The
government's giving councils an automation work it out, how to
do it in three months or will do it for you.
It's actually a really big job to do this for
amalgamated council. That sounds easy, right, but it's not. You've
got a work out how everyone fits together, who's doing what,
how many jobs are keeping, how many get rid of it.
It's actually massive.

Speaker 9 (24:47):
Do you think it's possible to do I don't think
any I don't. I think it'll be very interesting to
see what councils managed to put together in three months,
because as you say, I mean I live in Wellington,
which and there's a log iological case to be made
for amalgamating some of the Wellington councils in the way
that it was done in Auckland a little more than
a decade ago. But the specifics of how you do

(25:08):
that takes a lot. I mean in Auckland, I think
it took It took a Royal commission in multiple years
of working out would go. These cash strap councils are
not going to be able to come up with three
detailed proposals of their of their amalgamations in three months,
but they might come up with a blueprint of sort
of of logically which which services can be shared or
whether a full amalgamation is necessary. I think that sort

(25:31):
of the phone print. There is clearly that the Beehive
wants amalgamations to occur, and the structure of this, which
is that councils can choose to put a proposal to
the beehive, or they can not choose to put a
proposal to the beehive, but the beehive will be the
final decision maker regardless. That basically says the beehives telling
you to amalgamation and you have just some the only

(25:53):
the only question is what level of say you want
to have over your future.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Thomas, really appreciate your time this morning. Thank you so much.
That was New Zealand Herald Political editor Thomas Coblin.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
The Sunday Session Full Show podcast on I Hard Radio
powered by News Talks.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
In the current world an economic climate, you might think
that travel would be off the table for Kiwi's, However,
it appears that's not the case with demand for travel
holding firm. There does appear to be a shift though
in how we're traveling, and it's something being seen at
this weekend's Auckland Travel Show. Founder Rob Elliott is here
to talk me through it.

Speaker 4 (26:27):
Good morning Rob, Good morning Francesca.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
Has there been big interest in the show this weekend.

Speaker 8 (26:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:33):
Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (26:34):
We had a really great day yesterday, a couple of
thousand people through the doors, which is always a good sign,
and opening the doors at ten am today at ten
till four brilliant.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
Has travel slowed at all? Given increased cost pressures and
of course a bit of global uncertainty.

Speaker 4 (26:49):
Yeah, I think travel's changed over the last few months, certainly,
But what are we comparing it to? Which normal? Was
it the pre COVID normal of twenty and nineteen or
the normal of a couple of months ago. So I
think we're sort of all getting used to constant change,
aren't we.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
So how has travel shifted? Where are people heading?

Speaker 4 (27:12):
Yeah, like I think obviously with all the turbulence going
on in the Middle East at the moment over March April,
it seems that bookings for some parts of the world
have slowed a little. But what I'm hearing from everyone
down here at the Auckland Travel Show is that people
just basically redirected, you know, where their plans are going

(27:32):
to take them. And so certainly lots of people who
have tours and special itineries through parts of Asia are
doing really well. At the Auckland Travel Show at the moment,
we've got quite a lot of the Pacific Islands in
the room. Obviously, these are destinations that really aren't too
affected by what's going on elsewhere in the world, But
then I mean we've got there was about eight different

(27:54):
cruise companies down here at the show as well, and
there are boarding you know, people still strong interest in
europe river cruises, you know through France, things like that
are still very much what people are coming to them for.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
Are there countries people are less likely to travel? Given
the global situation?

Speaker 4 (28:16):
Middle East hasn't been hot on people's to do list
that I've noticed. Yeah, So so I think, you know
that's the that's pretty much the big one. And I
guess as well for sort of long haul travel. You know,
if you're wanting to fly through to Europe, we are
seeing people sort of be redirected through places like Malaysia.

(28:36):
So you might have traveled through Dubai, but now it's
sort of you know, Malaysiay Alliance or what have you instead,
And so I mean they've I think people are sort
of open to exploring some other, some other routing at
the moment, and in particular, I mean we've got Malaysia
Alliance here doing. You know, if you want to do
that long haul trip to London, for example, you know

(29:00):
halfway there you can choose one of a kind of
stop off destinations as a free as a free add on,
and so you know that's getting a lot of interest here,
understandably because he wouldn't want to get Alan Kawi for
a couple of days on the way back from the UK.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
Do you think the airlines have actually done a pretty
good job of adapting to the challenges face at the moment?

Speaker 4 (29:20):
I think again, they're having to be so nimble, aren't they. Yeah,
you know, are they're getting a curveball every other week,
So yeah, I think that. I mean, the reality is
you can still absolutely fly by via the Middle East,
but everyone's got a different sort of risk tolerance, I guess,
and everyone's got a different sort of anxiety around what

(29:41):
might what they're prepared to do, And so yeah, I
think they are having to be pretty nimble. And we've
certainly seen that with a case of you know, our
National airline here, but we've got you know, we've got
Singapore Lines and Malaysia Airlines in the room, and you
know those are those are two airlines that really aren't
being too poorly impacted by what's going on the board

(30:02):
at the minute.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
Is it just the destinations that have changed little bit,
or has there been a shift in the way people
travel or what they're wanting to get out of their travel.

Speaker 4 (30:13):
Yeah, look, I mean from somebody you certainly I used
to travel quite a lot when I was younger, you know,
three kids and that sort of thing. Those days, those
days were you know, fancy free. You could sort of
just jet across to you know, get across for a
week in somewhere. I think I did a similar thing
in the UK. But the reality is nowadays, with everything

(30:37):
that is going on in the world, and hey, the
cost of travel probably has got a bit more well,
it has got more expensive than what it was six
years ago. So people are tending to take probably fewer
trips generally, but then do more when they're there. And
so what we're hearing from the specialists we've got down
here at the travel show is that people are really

(31:00):
looking for an in depth Generally, they don't want to
they don't want to jump on a bus, a hop on,
hop off bus, take a photo of the monument, get
back and go to the next site. I think those
days are somewhat over for the moment. You know, people
are really wanting to get off the beaten track, get
to really understand the place. And so people are you know,

(31:21):
the the rise and rise of the small group tour
really kind of curated itineries. You know, cruises, if you
want to go on a cruise, it's no longer just
the big ocean liner. Yes, we've got that. We've also
got the little river cruises through the Nile. You know,

(31:43):
I've only had two hundred people on the boat, you know,
so you've got all these really interesting kind of offerings now.
So there's really been an explosion in the last you know,
a couple of decades of of what you can do
if you want to if you want to go out
and explore the world. And so yeah, part of what
we're doing at the Auckland Travel Show is offering some
of the best of you know, the best in the

(32:05):
business to be able to help people choose that trip
and you know, create something that's really special.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
Why do you think I think? Sorry, sorry, Rob finish up.

Speaker 4 (32:15):
I was just going to say, yeah, back to the question.
You know, has has the way that we're traveling changed?
And I think yeah. I mean think people over that
COVID period that couldn't travel, you know, have really decided
that they're wanting to make the trip, They're wanting to
go do those bucket list experiences and they're not going

(32:36):
to be put off by it. But when you finally
are able to get out and do it, you want
to make sure you get it right. You want to
you want to do it properly. And so yeah, so
it's not just a book and a check flood online anymore.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Which probably in part does answer my next question, which
was going to be why do you think travel is
so important to kiwis because you think, given the world
at the moment, that travel might be the one thing
that people step back from.

Speaker 11 (32:57):
Yeah, I think, you know, I think people you know,
there was so much complained about being being locked in
over over that COVID period, and you know, the real
that didn't take a couple of months, it's years, you
know some And so if you know you could be
five years older if you put it off the trip now,

(33:18):
like when are you putting it off till you know?

Speaker 4 (33:21):
Are you going to be able to travel better in
three months or in six months, or in two years
or in five years. Yeah, and so the reality is
you might find that right now is the best time
to travel. So yeah, my thoughts and certainly the way
that I'm approaching things is, there's no better time to
travel now. I'm not going to wait for another five
years and waits on five years older to take that holiday.

(33:44):
It's not going to happen. I'm going to take my
family now.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
Rob, really nice to talk to you. Thank you so much.
The Auckland Travel Show is on today at the New
Zealand Convention Center. It is twelve to ten.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
Here yourself. Think it's the my costing Breakfast.

Speaker 12 (33:59):
The OECD had a word about New Zealand and yesterday.
They've waited on the super debate. Of course they want
eligibility link to life expectancy. We had eventually to sixty nine.
Nicola Willis Finance Minister. They say we should be doing
something about superannuation. We're not going to so is at
the beginning of the middle in the end of.

Speaker 13 (34:13):
No, we are going to have to do something. If
you're sensible, you listen to these facts and you think, well,
that's not sustainable. In the nineteen sixties there were around
seven New Zealanders of working age for every person aged sixty.

Speaker 14 (34:24):
Five or older.

Speaker 13 (34:25):
Today there are four, and by twenty sixty five there
will only be two. That to burden on our taxpayers
is increasing significantly.

Speaker 12 (34:33):
Back tomorrow at six am the Mike Hosking Breakfast with
a Vida, News Talk Z EDB, keep It's.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Simple, It's Sunday, The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkotter and
Wiggles for the best selection of great reads, News Talk SEDB.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
The Nostalgia tours keep coming. On Friday, West Life announced
their twenty fifth anniversary World tour is heading here in
July next year. So for all your boy band fans,
for West Life fans, it's a little something to perk
you up today. But in news and thanks so much
for all the texts. Allison text to say sorry, what's
happening with the university fees? I thought that, you know,

(35:28):
National had wiped it from being the first year, moved
it to the third year. What's happened, well, Allison, it's
been leaked that this will be the last year that
the FeAs Free will exist. It's going to be completely
wiped and then maybe targeted for certain trades and things
that the government thinks we need to encourage people to
head into. I don't know, I think you should just
if you're going to wipe it, just wipe it. I

(35:49):
think that's going to get really tricky for them. So
that is the news. It's gone. So if you have
a child at university there in their final year this year,
it will be honored, but if they finish next year
it won't be. Text here, I don't understand this government.
It seems lux and wants our people to leave New Zealand.
I don't see any positive reason for the removal of
this funding. Another one reads, I feel for the students,
having supported three of our children through their degrees. However,

(36:11):
my taxes are going towards fees three and when the
students graduate they take off overseas. Anyway, It's hard, but
so as being older. Yeah, and I think more of
them will probably take off actually now in order to
try and pay that off as quickly as possible, because
most of them do want to pay it off. Ah.
Another I think it's great that Winston opened up. I'm
sick of all these powers that be hiding things beating

(36:31):
around the bush. We all need fast transparency to get
this country going.

Speaker 8 (36:35):
Well.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
Look, it was going to be announced at the end
of the month anyway.

Speaker 3 (36:39):
Look going back.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
To the text that Craig sent before as well, I'd
love to get your thoughts on this, because Craig raves
a really good point, and Thomas agreed, there can be
two things happening at once. This is politics, right, Winston
is trying to put himself out there, appeal to voters
and things. But you take into account the emails that
were leaked about the Prime minister's views on Iran, which
Winston knew exactly what was going on there. He knows

(37:01):
the number one rule is you do not leak budget information.
The second thing, you think it starts to sort of
raise questions about trustworthiness. You know, the coverlestion I think
will be absolutely fine. They will definitely get the election.
There are going to be there's the politicking and maybe
a few cracks, but they will be fine. They will
get to the election. They will hold it together. But

(37:21):
I would question, you know, how sort of trustworthy this
sort of behavior looks. So just throwing that out there too.
And Ben said that they've just booked a two week
trip around Australia. They were going to hit Europe, but
the airfares have jumped so much that Australia is where
they're heading, so a little bit of a change and
our travel plans there. Thank you very much for your texts.
You can text anytime throughout the morning. On ninety two

(37:42):
ninety two, it is six to.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Ten the Sunday Session Full show podcast on my Heart
Radio powered by News Talks.

Speaker 3 (37:50):
That'd be.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
Coming up afternoons and Sport. My geest is Pax Asardi. Now,
Pax is one funny guy, and it turns out, after
reading his book, he loves to be He's very happy
to be the bart of his own jokes as well.
Now we all know packs as an award winning stand
up can median. We've all seen him on the TV.
He's done shows like Seven Days and Taskmaster to name
a few, and he also is the creator and writer

(38:14):
and style of the critically acclaimed series Raised by Refugees.
But after reading his memoir Mortified, you're going to know
him a lot more. He shares it all with us.
But it's really interesting because by sharing a lot of
the mortifying, really embarrassing moments in his life, he's learned
quite a lot about himself. So we're going to have
a chat about that. Pax Asadi is with me next right.

(38:36):
This week they've played two gigs in Wellington and a
sold out show in Auckland last night. The final Split
Ends show is tonight at Spark Arena. There are tickets
still available. How perfect is that If you've just forgotten mum,
just grab a couple of tickets for Mother's Day. Our
entertainment guy Steve Neil is heading there tonight, but we
will talk about that next hour. We're going to furnish

(38:57):
with a little bit of Split Ends message to my girl.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
It's Sunday. You know what that means.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin and Winkles for
the best selection of great reads.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
US talk zipp.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
It is seven past tenure with news Talks. I'm franchisc
Rudkin with you until midday to day right. For those
of you who know comedian and TV host Pack Society,
it probably comes as no surprise he would base his
memoir on the times in life for the rest of
us try to block from memory. Not focusing on the
glossy highlights reel, but more the shame, the cringe and
almost stupid things that leave us wanting to die of embarrassment.

(40:02):
In his book, Mortified, Packs is not only embracing those moments,
but asking what we could gain if we were all
to open up and share our most awkward memories of ourselves.
That society joins me.

Speaker 6 (40:15):
Now, good morning, good morning, Thank you for having me. Francesca, congratulations,
thank you.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
It's a page turner. I read it in two sittings,
which is pretty good, isn't It.

Speaker 6 (40:25):
Is exceptionally kind. Thank you so much. It's so hard
to know if you've spent so long writing a book
and you put all these words down on paper, and
then you don't fully know if people are going to
like it because you haven't given it to anyone yet. Yea,
when someone says they like it, it genuinely means a lot.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
But you had a really interesting experience when you came
to read the audio book. You suddenly was like, again,
how long did it take you to write the book?

Speaker 6 (40:49):
I don't remember. Six months, eight months, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (40:52):
Okay, A bit of time went into it, and then
all of a sudden you're reading it out. That can
I make changes?

Speaker 6 (40:58):
I also I wanted I tried to read it differently,
so my brain made me read it slightly differently in
a way that I preferred, and then the audio engineer
would keep buzzing in and going no, no, you have
to read it the way you wrote it, man, And
I'm like why, but yeah, it was an experience of
wanting to change specifically like the way I wrote because

(41:20):
I didn't like the sentence structure I used or whatever.
And then also just like deep, deep regret for sharing
these terrific, harrowing stories of my life.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
So the memoir is about the embarrassing moments. Why did
you decide to take that approach? What did you want
to get.

Speaker 6 (41:37):
Out of that good question? Why?

Speaker 3 (41:40):
Why?

Speaker 10 (41:42):
Why?

Speaker 6 (41:43):
I got approached by Penguin to write more of a
traditional memoir, like an autobiography, and at thirty five I
felt like it was well and when they asked me,
I was like thirty two thirty three, and I felt
like it was a weird time. It felt too early.
So they said, hey, if you have any other ideas,
come back to us. And so a couple of years later,
I had a little bit more breathing room creatively. I

(42:05):
wasn't hosting Bakeoff anymore, and I was kind of in
a more creative zone writing stand up and ideas were
coming to my head, and this idea popped into my
head and I just thought it was a cool counter
culture thing to do against the backdrop of our social
media society that is obsessed with making sure we all

(42:30):
look pristine, and I'm just kind of sick of it.
I'm a little bit sick of us all pretending like
we're all perfect, and if we do want to show
our mistakes, it's in a very curated way that still
makes us look like we come out on top, that
we're super humble, or that we're super gracious, and that

(42:51):
our embarrassing things still makes us look awesome. And I
just wanted to write a thing that was like I
did this stupid thing, and that's all.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
You do do quite a lot of stupid things. Thank
you writing about these moments though childhood through to adulthood.
They're not the moments that a lot of us want
to sit and reflect on too much. We just want
to we want to bury them. Did you find being
painfully honest with yourself though a good thing because we
get these little learnings out of all these embarrassing moments.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
Yeah, I.

Speaker 6 (43:25):
It was a hard thing. Yeah, it was a hard thing.
And particularly it's so interesting when you set the task
for yourself to remember all the bad things or all
the things that you've tried to forget. You actually have
to go deep into the recesses of your mind and
find them, because your brain does a really good job
of putting them away, and you have to actually sit
down and dig and remember them. And it's somewhat of

(43:47):
a painful experience. But what happened was that I realized
that each one of these experiences was the road map
to becoming who you are today or who I was. Specifically,
you know who I am today, because you don't particularly
learn much from your awesome expres speriences. We've all met

(44:08):
the super rich kid who's had an almost perfect life
and nothing really that bad has happened to them. That
rich kid usually is kind of a nothing person, you know,
like when you meet them and you go, oh, you're
a very thin human and that's kind of not your fault.
You just haven't been given the opportunity to go through fire,
which hardens you, which strengthens you, right, And so I

(44:30):
realized that, oh, that's why I operate this way, because
I had this experience, and it's taught me to treat
people like this, or to be kind in these situations,
or to be this or that. And you realize that this, this,
these experiences are actually the lanterns that light your path
along life, but you don't even realize it because you
don't want to think about it.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
That's a really nice way of putting it. Because there
is a common thing that does run through these stories.

Speaker 6 (44:56):
Yeah, one of them is pooping my paint.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
There is the co brown.

Speaker 14 (44:59):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
I just have this vision of this tiny little boy
and it all happening around you. I can visualize this.
Leave that to the readers to enjoy that number. But
there's a theme running through all these stories, a need
for acceptance and belonging.

Speaker 6 (45:15):
Yes, And I'm wondering.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
Whether you still have those needs now, yes.

Speaker 6 (45:18):
One hundred and I think we all do. I think
we all want to be loved. I think we all
want to be heard. I think we all want to
feel like there is a community out there that accepts
us and wants us to be part of that community.
And I think when you're an and I don't I
don't want to say this and imply that it is

(45:40):
an experience exclusive to migrant kids or children of migrants,
because it's not. It's an experience that everyone experiences, regardless
of your background. But we all just experience it in
slightly different ways. This desire to be accepted, right, But
of course I'm going to write it from a migrant
perspective because that's my perspective, or a child of migrants
or refugees, and so that that that context, being a

(46:02):
child of refugees painted my experience of wanting to be accepted.
But I think that's a universal experience. And a lot
of these experiences that we want to bury and that
are so embarrassing do revolve around us making choices that
weren't quite the right choice. But ultimately there were things
that we that we did because we just wanted people

(46:23):
to care about us and love us.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
I loved getting to know your family in this book.
I love getting to know your parents. Tell me about
your parents, where they're from, and how they ended up
in New Zealand.

Speaker 6 (46:33):
Yeah, I mean, speaking of parents, shout out to my
Happy Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to my mom and
my wife who was a mother. But yeah, my parents
are really just They're just really hard working people who
have been through a lot in their lives and have

(46:54):
really tried to not allow that a lot to get
in the way, and sometimes it does for lots of
migrant parents and refugee parents, and sometimes it doesn't. But
I think I'm really grateful that I had parents that
prioritized their kids, and I'm really grateful that I had

(47:15):
parents that prioritize creating a really great life for us.
But when you're raised by refugee parents, and I talk
about this in the book, you inevitably because when you're
seven or eight or nine years old, you're trying to
figure out society, right, and they are too, so you're
doing this beautiful dance where both of you are trying
to figure out the world together. You don't have the
luxury of having parents that grew up in this country

(47:37):
and understand the context beautifully, like my kids have that luxury.
I was born and raised here, so I understand the
New Zealand context. It's in me, it's part of my being.
So they don't have to worry about their dad having
to figure New Zealand out with them, whereas that was
my experience. I had to learn New Zealand with my
mum and with my dad, and that is a beautiful

(48:00):
thing and can also lead to embarrassing moments, but it's
part of it. It's part of it.

Speaker 2 (48:06):
Yeah, absolutely, which are perfect for a book, which is
perfect for a book. As you said, you were born here,
but you're half Pakistani, you're half from around half Pakistani.
How do you reconcile that, I suppose discomfort of being
from a variety of different worlds when you're growing up.

Speaker 6 (48:26):
Yeah, I mean, I think my life growing up, and
this is an experience shared by a lot of kids
and young people growing up in New Zealand that share
my context. Regardless of whether the countries are the same,
they share that duality, and I think my context was

(48:46):
my experience was defined by that duality, not only the
Pakistani Iranian duality, but then also the son of refugees
slash New Zealand duality because I was born here and
raised here, so I know nothing more. I know nothing
else other than New Zealand. I don't know anything else.
But never fully felt accepted. For a while, I feel

(49:07):
fully do. I feel fully accepted now, I'll be honest
with I'll be honest. I would say I feel more
accepted now. I feel closer to fully accepted, but still
there's something that gnaws away and makes me sometimes feel
not fully accepted. That's a bigger topic that we don't
have to get into it.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
But I was wondering, you no longer feel the need
to claim your tongue in.

Speaker 6 (49:31):
No, no, and yes. These are examples that show that
the desperate desire to feel accepted has quieter down.

Speaker 8 (49:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
And so there's a great chapter in the book where
you talk about incorporating that into a comedy, yes, a
show of yours, And I'm wondering, was that the riskiest
thing you did, because you really hate to think hard
about whether you would include that and how it would
be received.

Speaker 6 (49:54):
I don't know if it was the riskiest thing I've
done on stage, but it felt like it at the
time because I was talking about the idea of literally
just absorbing someone else's culture for my benefit, and I
didn't know if that was okay, and it kind of
isn't okay, but is okay. And I think the reason
it was accepted, and I think the reason the Tonguin

(50:15):
community was like this guy's awesome, which I'm so grateful
for still to this day, is that it came from
real truth. It wasn't made up, it wasn't exaggerated. It
was like real honesty. It's genuinely what I did as
a kid because I hated being from Iran. I hated
the Middle Eastern connection to to you know, terrorism was

(50:37):
something that was part of the news a lot in
the early two thousands for reasons that we all know.
And so Iran, you know, the assumption being Middle East,
and you were connected to those extremist groups immediately, and
you had no choice. They would just connect you to
them as a joke. And so I dropped it and
became tonguen for real. At school that was a primary intermediate, and.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
You started young.

Speaker 6 (51:00):
I started you. Yeah, deeply experienced, deeply experienced my lot
to all my tongue and listeners. So yeah, I think
it's because it came from a place of truth that
and I think audiences could feel that. But yeah, at
the time it felt risk. I did not know how
the Pacific community would respond. I did not know how
the tongue in community would respond. And doing it on stage,

(51:24):
this is not an exaggeration. I've never crushed harder on
stage than that moment. And my life has been a
series of me chasing that moment.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
Now, that was a really that was really interesting to
read because I think that I think to be a
stand up comedian. It's the bravest thing in the world.
I just think I can't think of anything more mortifying
than doing that. And as you say, there was this,
but you just had this wave of love and laughter
and you just went it worked on on fire and

(51:52):
it was brilliant. And then you have that and then
all of a sudden you realize how good it can
be to get that kind of feeling. And that's why
you keep getting back up on stage, I presume to.

Speaker 6 (52:02):
I mean, that's not the sole reason I get back
up on stage. Like, I really liked inject purpose into creating,
like the purpose to like challenge people's thought or bring
people together or talk about an interesting idea that could
maybe change someone's mind about something. But yeah, I'm not
going to pretend. I'm not going to lie and pretend
like it isn't part of it. It definitely is part
of a little of it. Yeah, it's a little bit

(52:23):
of it. And I've had a great career since then.
I've had some amazing gigs since then, but nothing has
quite felt like the first time you crush in front
of two thousand people. It's something different.

Speaker 2 (52:34):
I love it, and this is what I love about you.
That this book is absolute hilarious, but you're not afraid
to kind of talk about the difficult stuff. And I
want to ask you about how we're doing in New Zealand.
How racist are we? Are we better than we were
when you were growing up?

Speaker 6 (52:48):
For example, oh, one hundred percent. I think we're much
better than we were when I was growing up. I
think we much were much better than we were when
my dad first arrived in the eighties and my mom
first arrived in the eighties. I think we've advanced a lot.
I like to use the word matured. I think as
a society, we've matured a lot in New Zealand, and
we've we've come into our almost like societal almost not adulthood,

(53:11):
but it's almost like as a society we're becoming like
early twenty year olds as a collective, where we're like
starting to understand who we are as a multicultural society.
But I still think that there's room for improvement. I
still think there's room for growth. And I want people.
When I say that, I really want and I'm gonna
say white people for lack of a better term, But

(53:34):
that's a blanket statement, and I use that blanket statement
because I don't have time to be more nuanced than that.
But I really want the major, let's say the majority
of people in New Zealand, rather than saying white people,
I really would love for there to not be defensiveness,
but rather an understanding of what I'm saying. I'm not

(53:54):
saying when I say this room for improvement, I'm not
saying you're the bad guy. I'm saying when you, as
the majority, understand that this room for improvement, and you
try and improve, or you try and help to have
a conversation with other people, you as the majority, you
don't understand how powerful that is. When the majority is
on our team, the migrants, the children of migrants, the

(54:17):
support and the power that that gives us is unmatched.
And so when you're an ally, there is a wave
of development and advancement that happens that is far greater
than the brown people going please stop stop. You know
when when the majority go, hey, we we hear you,

(54:38):
we understand, and we're here to support you, man, that's
a that's a different level of positive injection into society.
And that that's why I say that because sometimes I
feel like when I talk about this kind of stuff,
there potentially is a defensiveness. And if we move away
from defensiveness and go I want to hear you and

(54:58):
I want to help, it's magical. It's actually magical.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
There's one other thing I wanted to ask you about
from the book and then, is that you see that
it takes back eight years to get good at good
at stand up comming. And I thought to myself, did
you know that when you started out? Because I'm not
sure that. I mean, that's a long time to get
at something, but you hit a lot of early success.
So what what what is it when you go, yeah,
I'm good at this. What what have you nailed?

Speaker 6 (55:22):
It's interesting because you think early on in your career
you say I'm good at this, and you think you're
good at it, but you're not good at it, and
you realize you weren't good at it it You've got
potential and you and you're getting laughs. But eight years
later you look back at your material, for example, or
you look back at footage of yourself doing stand up
and you go, oh, craft it is it.

Speaker 2 (55:42):
The way you craft the story or know what?

Speaker 6 (55:45):
I'll tell you what it is. It's a very simple thing,
very hard to get it takes a long time to
get but very simple in concept. It's finding your voice
and feeling truly comfortable on stage. I think it takes
seven to tenish years to walk on stage and for
the audience to go, ah, we feel fully comfortable with

(56:06):
this person, because it doesn't when you first start, say
you're two or three years in or four years in.
I'm not saying you're a bad stand up. From like
a structure perspective or from a craft perspective, you could
be a great joke writer, but it takes a while
for you to really settle into yourself on stage. And
that's the part that then when that flip, when that
switch flips, that's when you become a really potent comedian,

(56:30):
when the audience can fully relax with you on stage.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
Fascinating.

Speaker 6 (56:34):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
Thank you so much, Thank you for having me, Thank
you for coming.

Speaker 6 (56:37):
In and for reading my harrowing book.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
If you need a laugh, I can I can guarantee
you'll definitely get one. The book.

Speaker 6 (56:45):
I tried to fill it with gags.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
It's filled with gags.

Speaker 10 (56:48):
Yeah. Great.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
Mortified is the name of the books Things I have
to laugh about, And it is in stores now. It
is twenty four past ten year with newstalksb.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
Relax, it's still the weekend.

Speaker 1 (56:59):
It's a Sunday session with Francesca Rudgin and Wiggles for
the best selection of great reads used talk z B.

Speaker 2 (57:06):
The Wickles Top one hundred has become a local legend,
with readers invited every year to vote for their three
favorite books. Voting opens tomorrow for the twenty twenty six lists,
and all listeners are warmly welcome to contribute. You can
do this by going into a wit cal store or
place your votes online. You can find the form at
Wickles dot co dot nz. From tomorrow, the twenty twenty

(57:28):
six Wikkels Top one hundred will be announced at the
end of July, where there's bound to be a terrific
new list of great books to help you find your
next best read. Thousands of listeners find the Top one
hundred a great way to discover new books and authors,
whilst also checking off many of the classics which are
still beloved by so many voters. With books, games, toys, puzzles,
great gifts, gorgeous stationary greeting cards and the Wickles Top

(57:51):
one hundred to vote for. From tomorrow, there really is
something for everyone at Witkles.

Speaker 15 (57:57):
Folks with Wickles for the best selection of great reads.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
Writy ho Let's talk entertainment and I'm joined by it
now by Steve Neil. Good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 4 (58:12):
Hey.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
It's a really big week this week for Sir Peter Jackson,
and I think it's worth mentioning the cam Film Festival
is opening and he's going to be honored at the
opening ceremony.

Speaker 16 (58:22):
Yes, so this week on May twelfth, the festival opens
and spitty Jackson's in great company here because the festival
is also giving an honorary Palm daughter Barbara streisand also
so that's good, that's a great pairing. Previous recipients of
the Honorary Palm DUR include Jodi Foster, Meryl Streep, Robert

(58:42):
de Niro, Agnes Vada, and, as the festival puts it,
the awards and recognition of a body of work that
blends Hollywood blockbusters and auto filmmaking with extraordinary artistic vision
and technological audacity. Jackson's been going to can since he
was shopping Bad Taste at the film market there, so
it really has been a constant for him. He says

(59:05):
that bent to be on with an honorary palmdor it
Kan is one of the greatest privileges of my career,
notes that it's been a meaningful part of his filmmaking journey,
so it's pretty cool. You know, he's got plenty of trophies,
but man, this is a good one to add. No
absolutely other info from this year's fest. This year's jury
is headed by one of my fav working directors, Korea

(59:30):
Corea's Park Chan Work, whose last film No Other Choice
was a real highlight of last year. The jury selecting
winners from the official competition includes Demi Moore, Ruth Negus
stellin Scarsguard and Chloe Is Out.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
It's pretty cool jury this year col Jury.

Speaker 16 (59:48):
And this new Films in competition from Resuki Hamaguchi, Pedro Almodova,
James Gray, and r.

Speaker 4 (59:55):
Kazu Kodiaida.

Speaker 16 (59:56):
But just to show that Can isn't all about art house,
the late night screenings include a retrospective screening of two
thousand and ones The Fast and the Furious. Okay, hey, culture, mate,
there we get culture.

Speaker 6 (01:00:13):
There we go.

Speaker 16 (01:00:14):
So let's can that gets underway on the trath of
May and runs to the twenty third So we'll we'll
report back with the winners and maybe some of the
buzz on that as the festival comes to a climent.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
But of course, the really exciting for us, the thing,
the really exciting thing for us next then is how
many of those films are we going to be able
to secure for the New Zealand International Film Festival, because
traditionally they have had a very good you know, they've
had taken a pretty good stab. It been able to
get some of those big films pretty quickly.

Speaker 16 (01:00:44):
It's a world timed event which off the top of
my head, I want to say, is back in August
around that time of year. So yes, it is really
good timing to add some winners to the programming.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
Okay, New Zealand Music Month has kicked off, Split into Play.
They played finishing up their gigs tonight, You're heading along tonight.

Speaker 16 (01:01:01):
Go tonight. They're playing at Spark Arena and Auckland before
hitting across the Ditch the Australian shows. I've tried to
not pay too much attention to the real I don't
want this surprises the world ridiculously. I've never seen split ins,
so I'm really looking for stem relatively unrelatively young. Yeah,
yeap and yeah. Thus supported by Hans Puckett, who hilariously

(01:01:26):
attracted some commentary on one of the early shows for
playing too loud. Apparently someone was grizzling on social media
and the comment section on that post was quite funny.
But split iNTS tonight that's at Sparker and there are
still some tickets available. Also, things I'm looking forward to
this music month as the Altered Music Awards, which takes
place on the twenty eighth of May, the night before

(01:01:47):
New Zealand Music t Shirt Day, which is GOT initiative. Yeah,
it's a great excuse to like dig through the wardrobe
or even better kind of put some money or your
milk does and support a local act and in the
process it's a way of raising some raising some funds
for New Zealand's music charity Music Helps, So lots of
good reasons to wear a music t shirt that day.

(01:02:09):
And if he bussesn't into it, you know what to Tellent.

Speaker 5 (01:02:12):
Weat your t shirt.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
Love it, Steve, Thank you so much. Appreciate that. We'll
talk next week. So as humans prepare to spend more
time in space, obviously there's a lot of research going
on as to how the body adapts and responds when
gravity is reduced, and scientists have discovered space is not
a good place to have a heart attack. Doctor Micheld
Dickinson explains more.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Next, it's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin on News
Talks at b and.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
Joining us now is our science correspondent, Doctor Michelle di Consent,
Doctor Michelle Dickinson, Good morning, Good morning. You've got a
really interesting study for us today. And as I was
reading through it, I keep thinking to myself, it's about
keeping humans healthy in space. But I keep thinking to myself,
we have been sending humans to space for a while now.

(01:03:03):
I would have thought they would have sorted the issue
out film me too, which is why I'm sharing this study.
So it's in the journal micro Gravity and you can
read it. It's published online. And basically the question is
if somebody has a heart attack while they're in space,
CPR might not work. And I was like, what do.

Speaker 17 (01:03:23):
You mean, Like, of course it will work, It's always worked.
We're all CPR trade. We don't know how to do this,
and when I read about it, I didn't realize that
CPR as we currently do it, as you learn on
the first AID course, is very gravity dependent and space
no gravity. And I was like, oh, this is really interesting.
Well why does it matter. It matters because space tourism
is becoming a thing. People with more money are able

(01:03:45):
to pay right now to go to space. But that's
going to become cheaper and more accessible for more of
the population. But right now it's very expensive to go
to space. You'll probably go in a space program. And
if you've ever looked at what it takes to be
an astronaut, there is no chance that you have any
heart issues at the beginning of you becoming an astronaut.

Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
You need to be doing it perfect human specimen.

Speaker 17 (01:04:07):
Everything has been checked and so you are almost I'm
not going to say zero because I'm a scientist, but
a very low risk of having a heart attack or
any heart problems while you're in space. So CPR hasn't
really been a thing. But as the rest of us
willy nillyes who have a bit of cash want to
go to space, it is probably more likely to be
a thing. So this study basically says CPR relies on

(01:04:28):
gravity and body petitioning. Here on Earth, we need you
to lie down for example, we need your head to
be below your herder at least at the same level. However,
in space, astronauts float, and so we can't really control
where your head or your feet or the rest of
you are, nor can we push it down on you
because we're also floating too. And I was like, that's
really interesting. So what the study found is that traditional

(01:04:51):
CPR techniques do not work as effectively in reduced gravity environments,
and so they have gone, well, how do we measure
what actually works? So they've developed this cool little mannequin.
And this mannequin looks like a standard CPR mannequin, but
inside it it's got a whole bunch of sensors and
everything else that can measure things like pressure, blood flow direction,

(01:05:14):
all the measurements you actually want to calculate when you
are doing CPR, because we actually haven't done these measurements before.
And so they did this study, and then what they
did is they took the researchers to hypergravity. And so
to do that, they had to get onto a very
special aeroplane that actually can I.

Speaker 2 (01:05:33):
Would have loved to have saying this project unfold. It
would have been great watch.

Speaker 17 (01:05:37):
That can actually create a microgravity environment for a very
short period of time, at which the citis all had
to run to the middle and do CPR on this mannequin.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
I suppose the question is would have defibrillated work.

Speaker 17 (01:05:48):
I haven't even got to that point because what they
found is that they don't even know if the CPR works.
What they were able to measure is, yes, there are
measurable differences in blood pressure compared to Earth based CPR,
systolic diestolic pulse pressure, and all of those including mean
arterial pressure, were all higher in reduced gravity conditions. So
they know that our body will respond to CPR differently

(01:06:11):
in low gravity. But they have not found the right
way because there wasn't enough time on this little plane
when you've got two minutes basically microgravity to figure out
the right way. So they have even got to defibrillates
because they haven't worked out CPR yet. What they have
found is yes, traditional CPR is not going to probably
say if you if you're in space. More research needs
to be done, but now they have a magnequin and

(01:06:31):
a very expensive aeroplane to be able to do tiny tests.

Speaker 2 (01:06:34):
Can you imagine the terms and conditions list if you
were going to be a space tourist. It must just
be do you know I don't probably read that.

Speaker 17 (01:06:43):
Yeah, I don't think it. It's sort of like if
you saw because I read the one for the Titan.
The sum basically a very short list. It basically says,
if anything happens, we are not dealing with it. Like basically,
you are signing your life away.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
Anything can happened totally, and it's not how responsibility rather
than welcome the board exactly.

Speaker 17 (01:07:03):
It's a short list, not a long list. So anyway,
so if you're tech us a little bit dodgy and
you're offered a space trip, just go. It might be
a one way trip because CPR is probably not going
to save you right now, but the researchers are working
on it. There's optimism in this story.

Speaker 2 (01:07:19):
That's a sales pitch, Doctor Schutterkinson, thank you so much.
We'll talk next week. Coming up next to Mike vander Elson,
here's a Mother's Day treat for you.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
The Sunday Session Full show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by
News Talks IB.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
We've just been talking about New Zealand's Music Month and
Brent text to say Francesca went to the first of
Fat Freddy's three night gigs in christ Church last night,
celebrating twenty one years of based on a true story album.
It was brilliant. Good to hear you're out and enjoying
the gigs. Thank you so much for the text. Joining
me now is Mike vander Elson, our resident chief. Good morning, Mike,

(01:07:58):
Good morning Mother's Day. How has it gone down in
your house this morning?

Speaker 4 (01:08:03):
Well, I hope a little bit chaotic.

Speaker 10 (01:08:06):
Expect nothing to you anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
Thank you.

Speaker 6 (01:08:10):
But you're the first.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
You're the first person to say that I haven't heard
from me of my children. Oh, hang on, hang on,
I have Oh I got it. Forty one minutes ago,
my son takes me to say Happy Mother's Day. He
actually takes me last Sunday to say Happy Mother's Day,
and then sort of made the point while I've done
it now, so I'm ahead, happy mother.

Speaker 10 (01:08:29):
Did you tell him that he was a week early? Though?

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
Yeah? Yeah, I did tell him that, and he said, yeah,
but that's cool, sordid, but anyway, he has remembered, So
there we go. One child has very kindly sent me
some love. I'm loving it. I'm sorry. So you were
saying caroltoic in your house.

Speaker 10 (01:08:43):
Yes, we had. I had to drag kids out of bed.
Mom was already up doing the washing. It was like,
come on, girls, you promised me. And then what happened?
Last night? We brought some chocolate. We brought a bar
of Woks chocolate for Mother's Day present. This morning, hipter
our dog and ate the entire.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
It's a dog, okay, because I thought chocolate's not good
for dogs.

Speaker 10 (01:09:04):
He's fine, and I really don't care.

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
Okay, in a way things in a way, things have
unfolded in the vanda Elsenhause how I thought they might.

Speaker 10 (01:09:14):
So was so the girls didn't get up and there
was no present from mom. So we made a pancakes
and stet So all is good.

Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
My girlfriend of mine, she said to me. I said
to my husband, she's got three adult children. And she
said to him, hey, look of any of the mask God,
I'd love I'd love just a little Meca vulgi. That
would be lovely. And he went No. One's asked, Okay,
well that's fine, thanks so much. Anyway, tell us about
our Mother's Day crumpets.

Speaker 10 (01:09:39):
I know I'm a little bit late, but hey, we
could have brunch when we used.

Speaker 2 (01:09:44):
To have brunch, yes, now we just have any No.

Speaker 10 (01:09:49):
Yeah, well these could be Mother's Day crumpet lunches. So
you know, you can have crumpet favor, you can have
crumpet sweet. So crumpets are pretty cool and it's and
I think that's probably not the sort of thing that
people would really think of making themselves at home from scratch.
They just go out and buy the packets, which which
is great, but hey, give it a whorld because it's
a pretty easy and simple thing to make. Think of

(01:10:11):
it as like a pikelet, but it's a lot runnier.
So what you do need to make crumpets is you
need crumpet molds or like little steel rings maybe ten
ten meters rings that you can put into a pan
and then pour the batter into. So you do need
to go out and try and saw some of those,
like little pastry cutters. If you've got some of those,
that will work super. So to start off with, I've

(01:10:33):
got a heart. Three hundred and seventy five is a
really loose, loose batter. So three hundred and seventy five
meals of warm water max that with two hundred and
fifty MILS or a cup of warm, warm milk, add
in a tablespoon of dried yet and a tablespoon of sugar.
Set that aside to let the activate or yet the
leaves the yeast activate into another bowl four hundred grads

(01:10:56):
of plain flour, one teaspoon of baking powder, and a
pinch of salt. Once your yeas is activated, and you'll
notice because you'll start to see it bubbling on the surface,
slowly pull your yeast mixer into that flower mixer and
just beat it with the whiske into its loose Cover
the whole batter over with a damp cloth, and then
just set that aside somewhere wall for an hour. It's

(01:11:17):
going to take about hour to the men, particularly at
lim colder. After an hour, once you start to see
those bubbles coming to the surface, we can start get
into action. The final thing you do, and it's quite odd,
but this is what makes crumpets different to a lot
of other sort of baking elements, is just before you
start to cook the crumpets, take a teaspoon of baking soda,

(01:11:39):
mix it just with a little bit of water, and
then add that into that batter mix and what the
soda does is really brings that batter alive and creates
the big bubbles in the crumpets. So now heat up.
I've got a cascinron pan. Heat up a castron pan
over a medium heat. Drop in your crumpet molds a
touch of oil and then spoon and it's about a

(01:11:59):
quarter of a cup of crumpet mix into each of
those molds, and then just allow the buzzles to rise
to the surface. Once you see the ris into service,
you can actually take the molds away, and we're just
hoping at that stags that their cruppets will hold their shape.
If they don't, then the next time you do it,
just take the molds away just that little bit later.
Once you take the molds away, you can flip them over,
cook them for another five minutes, and repeat until the

(01:12:22):
rest of the battle mix is done. Keep them mormon
the oven, and then when you're ready to rumble out
they come and serve them with some hot marmalade and
lots of butter.

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
I love it. Thank you so much, Mike, really appreciate it.
You can get that recipe from good from Scratch dot
cot dot inz or at Newstalk ZIDB dot co dot
inzied Ford Slash Monday Sunday Dear Idea. It is at
twelve to eleven.

Speaker 3 (01:12:46):
There's no better way to start your Sunday.

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and Wiggles for
the best selection of Greg Reaves US Talk.

Speaker 10 (01:12:56):
Sa'd be.

Speaker 2 (01:12:58):
Juling me Nawl's Talk Wellness is Erin O'Hara. Good morning.
We're going to talk about seed oils. And there's a
lot of confusion around oils and the different kind of
oils and what's good for us and what's.

Speaker 18 (01:13:09):
Bad for us.

Speaker 2 (01:13:09):
So where do the seed oils sit?

Speaker 19 (01:13:12):
Yeah, so seed oil is a real controversial one. There's
research that shows that seed oils are good for us
and really good for heart healthy and actually show evidence
to lower cholesterol and reduce heart disease risk. And then
there's the other flip side of fueling chronic inflammation and
chronic diseases. So you've got these two sides of different

(01:13:34):
research from different people, and it's really hard to know
what we should be doing if you don't know what
seed oils are. Seed oils are also also referred to
as vegetable oils. So the common ones are your canola,
so we're being corn, sunflower, grape seed oil, peanut oil,
rice bran oil.

Speaker 2 (01:13:52):
So these are all oils.

Speaker 19 (01:13:54):
That are commercially processed. And these seed oils are chemical processed,
and they're done through a process of cleaning, pressing, bleaching, deodorizing, refining,
and sometimes even they can add a chemical solvent known
as hexane for the oil extraction, and that's where that
toxicity really comes in as hexane k is actually a

(01:14:16):
chemical that comes from crude oil. So that's where we're like,
should we really be adding things that are processed to
this sort of level, And that's where there's that risk
factor of seed oils. Are they causing chronic disease, cancer
and inflammation? And that's where it really comes down to
the components of what seed oil really is. And the
balance of amiga six is to a mega threes, okay,

(01:14:40):
and that's really where all sort of fats have that balance.
And the problem with your seed oils is that they
are mainly just a mega six and a mega six
is actually very abundant in modern society in our diet
because your a mega sixes are and actually all ultra
processed foods, so we're getting a lot of them in

(01:15:01):
our diet. And the problem is not just a mega
six is bad for us, because it's not. It's actually
something that we essentially need for health, like the a
mega threes. It's more to do with the balance that
we're getting within our diet. So if we're having way
too much amega six, which would happen if you're adding
and using a lot of seed oils on top of
what you're already doing in your diet, then you'll have

(01:15:21):
a very low proportion of amega three. So and that's
what really drives up inflammation. And if we look at
the common everyday person and their common diet, a lot
of people are getting the balance of a mega six
to a mega three of not two to one or
one to one, but more like twenty to one, which
means that that's what's really causing a lot of problems.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):
So there are the seed oils which are better.

Speaker 19 (01:15:45):
Than others, not really like it's more about looking at, okay,
what should we do to cut back on them? And
that's we're looking at alternative oils, So things like extra
virgin olive oil if you're using it for low heat
cooking or if you're using for high heat cooking things
like avocado oil and choosing cold press where possible. Also,

(01:16:05):
the other way we can balance this Amiga six to
a Mega three is upping your Amiga three rich foods,
So that's things like fatty fish like salmon, sardines, seeds
like chair seeds, flax seeds, walnuts, and also fortified foods
that have added a Mega three, so we get more
Omega three into the diet because that will create that balance.

(01:16:26):
And then also just keeping that mix of good fat,
so making sure you're getting more of those cold press
wheels in there, and then trying to avoid were possible
of cutting back the seed oils where you can when
you don't need to be having them, and especially things
like deep prying.

Speaker 2 (01:16:41):
We don't really know at one point there, and I
was replacing it with the grape seed oil, which was
which was quite nice to cook with, but.

Speaker 19 (01:16:48):
Yeah, yeah, maybe not right for the long term health
for inflammation.

Speaker 2 (01:16:52):
From that look that I'm getting from Aaron Ohara, will
put that on the back burner. Thank you so much,
Lovely to get up with you.

Speaker 1 (01:16:58):
The Sunday Session Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio Empowered by
Newstalks b.

Speaker 6 (01:17:06):
Al Right.

Speaker 2 (01:17:06):
So morgana o'reiley doesn't call herself a stand up comedian,
and yet this year she is taking part in the
International Comedy Festival. She has taken her one woman show,
which is very funny, and she has turned it into
a film. It's called Stories about My Body, and there
really are a lot of really real and raw stories
about her body that many of us can relate to.

(01:17:27):
So she is going to join me next to talk
about the film and being nude on screen. That is
morgana O'Reilly. And she's got exceptionally good taste in music,
so she's put a bit of Tammy Nilsen into the
film as well. As We're going to finish the hour
with Queeny Queenie bactually.

Speaker 16 (01:17:43):
En Baby, La Queen Jean Run La La Queen Queen Donasa.

Speaker 14 (01:17:53):
Jeen We Run La La Baby Grading.

Speaker 11 (01:17:56):
Laugh Green Queenie b Duan Gen Bomb Dust Bu Queen
Queen Baby.

Speaker 1 (01:18:17):
Welcome to the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and Wiggles
for the best selection of great reads us.

Speaker 2 (01:18:31):
Coming up this hour on the Sunday Session, Meghan Singleton
is in peep In pigeon Ford. That is Dolly Parton Country.
It has been fifteen years since Catherine Stockett released her
best selling book The Help. She is finally back with
another Joan tells us all about it and Piney on.

Speaker 3 (01:18:48):
Sport the Sunday Session.

Speaker 2 (01:18:53):
So the wonderful Morgana rive. Here's a bit of a
regular to the show. The first time she appeared on
the Sunday Session was to talk about her stage show,
Stories About My Body. Now the show was a smash
hit and Morgana has turned it into a film, Stories
About My Body. The film has its world premiere today
and We'regana O'Reilly joins me. Good morning, Happy Mother's Day.

Speaker 20 (01:19:12):
Oh my gosh, Happy mother's Day, Happy Mother's Day. I'm
trying to put more confidence in my voice.

Speaker 2 (01:19:17):
Bads good on news. We have spoken about that in
previous interviews, haven't we now? Tell me whose idea was
it to take the successful stage show and then turn
it into a film adapt it into a film.

Speaker 18 (01:19:27):
I think this was my practical mom brain at work.

Speaker 10 (01:19:30):
Yep.

Speaker 20 (01:19:31):
Having performed the show a bunch of times and like
feeling what it made people feel. I wrote it initially
because it was the show I needed to see and
I wanted to talk about this stuff. And then when
I started performing, it became very apparent that it wasn't
just my story.

Speaker 18 (01:19:45):
It was touching.

Speaker 20 (01:19:46):
It was touching people, not physically and with fuel consent,
but when people responded it to it the way that
they did. And then again, so practical brand goes, Okay,
should we tour it?

Speaker 3 (01:19:58):
Oh? Could we it?

Speaker 20 (01:19:58):
We could do it in Australia, we could take it
to Edinburgh. I don't I can't afford that. I mean,
I also have to spend a lot of time away
from my kids to do that.

Speaker 3 (01:20:06):
Hmmm hmm.

Speaker 20 (01:20:08):
Wait wait, I was married to a drink Why the
hell did I marry this guy if it wasn't for
him to make all my films, my film dreams come
to life?

Speaker 18 (01:20:23):
And I thought, oh my.

Speaker 20 (01:20:24):
God, pretty good in front of a camera. But anyway,
so I thought, this is a way for it to
live on beyond me.

Speaker 2 (01:20:30):
There is a lot of very personal information in the film.
So was it actually easier to do it with Peter
with your husband? Did that make a difference when it
came to sort of putting it up on the big
screen or were you too so used to the content
by then.

Speaker 20 (01:20:44):
You're used to the content probably, and also Pete is
really he is very particular. He's very particular in his storytelling.
So we found a really interesting both of us learning
at the start of the film. On stage, it turns
out it's way easier to pull the handbrake and just

(01:21:04):
veer tonally I'm like ha ha ha to Pathos, ha
ha ha Pathos. And on screen it's harder to do
that because you can feel it when you're watching audiences
kind of like yeah, okay, and what so what are
you trying to say? And having to temper some of
the early pathotic Is that a word?

Speaker 18 (01:21:24):
No, that's not a word, but well you know what
I mean.

Speaker 20 (01:21:26):
Yeah, those moments and Pete, even though he's my beautiful partner, husband, man,
father and my children, he was not like he didn't
let out because of our relationship.

Speaker 18 (01:21:40):
He's like, no, no, I think that's not going to work.
Let's take it out if that's what you mean. You know,
I don't know. Did it make it easier?

Speaker 20 (01:21:49):
And then weirdly, probably because it's coming from a partner,
that makes it more annoying.

Speaker 2 (01:21:53):
Right, it makes so nice.

Speaker 3 (01:21:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:21:57):
The film starts with a hilarious introduction, which is a
little bit like a nightmare for most of us. If
you you're running late and you are literally running to
the theater, but you're wrapped in a towel and a
shower cap and the next thing you know, you're half
naked on stage and you're getting your costume on. That
is a very brave start.

Speaker 20 (01:22:15):
Well, I just want to prove to my audience like
we're just we're not going to beat around the bush here.
Let's just get into it. Burbs are fine, Let's get
it all on the table.

Speaker 2 (01:22:24):
And that's exactly how it comes across. A really great
way to break down the wall between you and the audience. Okay, good,
is that what you were trying to do?

Speaker 3 (01:22:31):
It?

Speaker 18 (01:22:32):
Definitely okay, But you know, you can only hope that
that's what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (01:22:36):
But we do see quite a lot of you in
this film, more Ghana. How do you handle the nudity?
Does it phase you?

Speaker 17 (01:22:43):
Does it phase me?

Speaker 18 (01:22:44):
I don't know.

Speaker 20 (01:22:44):
It's sort of like my brain gets split into two things.
For a while there, the film was sitting with a
possible distributor when it was still in the process of
its final cut, and we thought we'd finished the edit,
we hadn't finished all the boughs and whistles, and they
sat on it for a bit and then they came
back and went, yeah, funny, yeah, cool, cool about that nudity.

(01:23:05):
And it was like, my vanity brain wants to be like,
get it out totally, no, take it out of there,
we don't need that. But my creative brain, my artist heart,
says I don't. Not only do I think it will
be okay, but I actually think it might be special.

Speaker 2 (01:23:25):
So tell us a little bit about this show that
we're now seeing on screen in the film.

Speaker 20 (01:23:31):
I think now I feel a bit more comfortable as
describing it primarily as kind of a stand up special,
which it took me a little while to come to
that point because I don't actually particularly identify as a
stand up. I feel stand ups are amazing, and it's
like it's not quite what I do. So I didn't
ever want to just take ownership of that title, but

(01:23:52):
I think it's an easier way for people to understand
what it is.

Speaker 18 (01:23:55):
It's like a stand up.

Speaker 20 (01:23:55):
Comedy special of my one woman show, but with like
some extra little fancy cinematic pizazz.

Speaker 2 (01:24:03):
Rooney and you're sharing stories about your body from about
your entire life. Yeah, that's right, from my little lad Yeah,
diary entries, which.

Speaker 18 (01:24:11):
Are thirteen year old.

Speaker 20 (01:24:12):
I think the whole thing is essentially a love letter
to her and to all of your thirteen year old selves,
all the way up until pushing babies out.

Speaker 18 (01:24:23):
Of one's body.

Speaker 2 (01:24:24):
And we'll get to that. We'll get to you know.

Speaker 18 (01:24:27):
I don't want to alienate anybody. Promise you, I promise
you'll like it.

Speaker 2 (01:24:32):
I do want to ask you about that, though, because
as the mother of a young daughter, are you conscious
of her growing up and having a good relationship with
her body?

Speaker 18 (01:24:39):
Absolutely, I'm so conscious of it.

Speaker 20 (01:24:42):
Like and I was thrown a bit of a curveball
with my son the other day because he sort of
mentioned that he was upset about how he looked, and
I was like, WHOA, what I've been laying in wait
about my daughter?

Speaker 3 (01:24:57):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:24:58):
This is oh yeah, okay, here we go.

Speaker 18 (01:25:01):
Here's this bit.

Speaker 20 (01:25:02):
First of all, you're perfect. Second of all, tho thoughts
are indicative of something else. Usually it's lack of sleep,
you haven't moved your body enough, it needs a walk
or something. Basically, those thoughts aren't real as such, they
are flagged to say we need help in another department,

(01:25:23):
like again, resting, moving, eating better food, and then I'll
take you to the barber and get you a nice
New year.

Speaker 3 (01:25:33):
K or something.

Speaker 2 (01:25:34):
It's really interesting you say that, though, because and I'm
sure that there are other mothers out there who've had
this similar experience. My son, when he was probably about fifteen,
suddenly went, oh, being tall and lanky is not cool,
and it became all about the gym. And these kids
have just wanted to go to the gym. There are
so many teenage boys who are at the gym and focus.
And I hear more from him, right, I hear him

(01:25:55):
talk more about his body and things that I do
his younger sister he's nineteen now, he's healthy and sensible
and things like that. But I was really taken back.
I was like you, I was preparing. I was preparing
for my daughter and the teenage years who you know
is no more conscious of your body than you know?

Speaker 18 (01:26:13):
That's great.

Speaker 2 (01:26:13):
I don't know anybody, but you know she's a dancer
and really confident in her body and doesn't give it
a And interestingly, the boys though, and I do think
it takes people by surprise.

Speaker 18 (01:26:23):
Yes, and I think.

Speaker 2 (01:26:26):
Of how they look.

Speaker 20 (01:26:27):
That's right, and where that is a problem, Like, I mean,
maybe it's okay to be conscious of how you look,
it's okay to be aware in the world. But when
it becomes tethered to your value and worth, absolutely issue.
So if your body, if you're a dancer, and it's functional,
it's doing something. And if you want to go work
out a ton because it makes you feel like a
happy brain, then good, but don't tether it. Try not

(01:26:51):
to let it tether to your value.

Speaker 2 (01:26:53):
Absolutely beautifully said. Do you think as we age we
get more comfortable with our bodies or do our concerns
just change?

Speaker 18 (01:26:59):
Well, I mean, you tell me.

Speaker 20 (01:27:01):
Francisca Rackon, I feel like I've I feel like I
came to in my mid thirties, and that's possibly because
they had kids first at thirty, so it might be
relative to that. And then I feel like I'm still
in this transition phase from I thought when I turned
forty that I'd be like, oh, and now I'm in

(01:27:22):
my forties, but I still feel like I'm transitioning from
one archetype to another. I remember feeling like this a
little bit in my late twenties into my early thirties.
But then I had kids and I had no time
to think about it anymore. And you feel it a
lot as an actor, maybe because you're casted. You're casted,
you're cast in things. You start to feel when you're
too old for certain roles and too young for others,

(01:27:44):
so you're just more aware of your shifts in the
in what you're seeing.

Speaker 2 (01:27:49):
As I can remember when I was at nineteen, I
did some auditions. I was terrible at them. No, I
wasn't nineteen, I must have been in my very early twenties,
so I must have been about twenty one, and they
asked me to audition for a mother in her early
thirties with a couple of teenage kids. Wow, And I
just remember looking at them, going, oh, okay, I really
I was the age before my time. But I was like, wow,

(01:28:09):
I've already missed the boat just to be my own age.

Speaker 14 (01:28:12):
Do you know what this is?

Speaker 8 (01:28:13):
Now?

Speaker 20 (01:28:13):
I've become obsessed with anytime I watch a film, especially
some of the more older films, when there is a
love interest couple, look at how old that actresses versus
how old he is at the time of filming, and
I bet you most of the time there's about a
fifteen year age difference.

Speaker 18 (01:28:31):
So in our head what we think.

Speaker 20 (01:28:33):
Is a suitable match between a forty five fifty five
year old man and who's the actress up against him?

Speaker 18 (01:28:41):
And it's not her fault, there's just this is what
we have been put that's what's been put in our
brain holes.

Speaker 2 (01:28:48):
So as an actress, as someone in the public eye,
do you feel a sense of responsibility when it comes
to a certain sort of type of woman, Yes.

Speaker 18 (01:28:57):
Which is so annoying. Sometimes I'm like, maybe I wish
I hadn't said anything, and I'll go and get heaps
of plastic surgery. Now I've said something. He and I
live up to it.

Speaker 20 (01:29:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, embrace your wrinkles and your muffin top,
fire out.

Speaker 3 (01:29:11):
I do.

Speaker 20 (01:29:12):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:29:13):
What do you want women to get out of this film?

Speaker 8 (01:29:15):
Oh?

Speaker 20 (01:29:16):
I think mostly I want anybody who watches it to
feel just like, have a feel, have a big old love,
maybe have a big old cry, come out feeling that
beautiful dual feeling of like sentimental and uplifted, and maybe
go home and be a bit nicer to your bod.

Speaker 2 (01:29:37):
I know that This has been such a big passion
project for you, and you are just hours away from
the premiere. It's making its way into the world. How
do you feel about that.

Speaker 18 (01:29:46):
I feel like mostly I feel great.

Speaker 20 (01:29:48):
Mostly I feel great, but I'm pre minstrual, so I
feel really anxious.

Speaker 18 (01:29:54):
I feel more anxious than is logic. Yeah, I feel great.
It's gonna be great. It's gonna be so great. I'm
so excited.

Speaker 2 (01:30:00):
It's absolutely beautiful, and I think it's something that all
women can relate to, and I think everybody will have.
There'll be little moments throughout this film, maybe not the
foot fetish work, which is very interesting. I go through
a foot finish space and you must go and see it,
just for the foot foot fetish stories. They are hilarious.
But I think we can all remember as young girls

(01:30:21):
the thoughts that you've had, and then as we sort
of grow older and our bodies do amazing things like
give birth to our babies, we kind of go, Okay,
maybe you're not so bad after all. And that's a
beautiful realization you have in the film.

Speaker 20 (01:30:31):
Yes, thank you, perfect summation, and I promise the boys
won't be scared of it too.

Speaker 18 (01:30:36):
I've had lots of dads come up to me afterwards,
and I remember the perth of my daughter. I filmed
it and it just took straight Pecker Dora.

Speaker 2 (01:30:45):
Oh you were It's not about you. I love it,
I love it. We're gone, I Riley, best of luck
with the film, and thank you so much for coming
in and talking to us today.

Speaker 18 (01:30:54):
I love it every time.

Speaker 2 (01:30:57):
For more information and tickets, head to Comedy Festival dot
co dot m Z. Coming up next, we have the
panel It's nineteen past eleven.

Speaker 3 (01:31:04):
Grab a cover.

Speaker 1 (01:31:05):
It's this session with Francesca Rudkin and wid calls for
the best selection of graplings used talks edb.

Speaker 2 (01:31:14):
Vive List Cinema. The Lorial Group French Film Festival is
back from May twenty seventh to June twenty eighth and
it's ground to become the most important French winter event
in New Zealand. Every year, the Loreal Group French Film
Festival brings you the best of the most exciting French
cinema from around the French speaking world. From Kettrikeetdy to Dunedin,
there are twenty four centers around New Zealand set to

(01:31:36):
take you on an incredible journey through cinema. Franseis carefully
curated to tell rich stories, showcase fresh perspectives and capture
the unmissible. Jois de Vive of French cinema. The twenty
four films in this year's program truly have something for
every cinephile. The Lorrial Group French Film Festival ALT twenty
twenty six a perfect winter's escape. Check out the lineup

(01:31:58):
at French Film Festival dot co dot nz only with
news talks edb Relax.

Speaker 3 (01:32:04):
It's still the weekend.

Speaker 1 (01:32:05):
It's the Sunday with Francesca Rudgin and Wiggles for the
best selection of great reads, us talks.

Speaker 2 (01:32:11):
That'd be and it is time for our panel, and
I'm joined by director at eight one eight Chris Henry.
Good morning Chris, and happy Mother's Day, Oh thank you
very much. And Jomy Carroll, journalist and editor, joins us
as well.

Speaker 6 (01:32:24):
Hi Joe, oh.

Speaker 14 (01:32:26):
Kayana Francisca and to Chris and happy Mother's stay to
all the mums, especially mine.

Speaker 9 (01:32:31):
There we go.

Speaker 2 (01:32:32):
Yes, if you've missed your moment, here's your chance. Right,
let's talk about the University Feasts Free scheme. It's been canceled.
This was sort of an announcement which probably was not
planned on Friday evening because of course we're not supposed
to talk about the budget before the budget. But Winston
just thought he'd let this slip out. If you're going
to remove pease free from tertiory study, should you just

(01:32:55):
remove it from everything across the board and not try
and pick and choose industries to apply it to?

Speaker 14 (01:33:01):
Joe, we need more detail. We don't it's fair, but
we need more of this detail of Oh no, we're
going to apply it in a way that makes more
of a difference. And I don't see how just picking
and choosing where you gave that fees free leg up
is going to help. But I mean, I think this
would be a real gut punch if you were studying now.

(01:33:23):
But I would also say I'm not convinced that this
was a hand up that actually helped people who would
not otherwise have been able to get into university.

Speaker 21 (01:33:34):
Well your thoughts, Chris, I mean, I think it's a
bit of a shame. I mean, I really liked the
idea of the free spree, especially moving it to the end.
You know, the way that the economy is going and
the prospect for jobs and stuff like that. We want
as many people as we can in any sort of education,
and this felt to me like a way that you
could be helping people out. So it just seems like,
with everything that's going on at the moment, it's just

(01:33:55):
not one of those things that we should be pulling out,
and especially with Yeah, just the way the word's going
at the moment, it just feels a bit silly for me.

Speaker 2 (01:34:02):
I think it's interesting. There was a comment made that
it's going to make an immediate and long term impact.
It's not going to make an immediate impact. That money's
not suddenly going to be sitting in a pot ready
to be spent. It's going to be loaned out and
very slowly paid back over a long period of time. Joe,
So you know, to me, I get why they've made
the decision, but this is this is going to have

(01:34:23):
a long term effect, not a short term effect.

Speaker 14 (01:34:27):
Yes, and it's only going to have a beneficial long
term effect if that money is then used in a
way that as Chris said, it has never been more
important to see people in all sorts of education. So
that's not just university, but all sorts of apprenticeships, all
sorts of secondary training institutions. But it's only going to
have a positive effect if that money is used in

(01:34:48):
a way that does reduce the barriers to entry for
those next steps in your education.

Speaker 2 (01:34:54):
Well, and actually the barrier is it's it's expensive going
to university. It's not something that everybody anymore. You know,
it's twenty thousand dollars for a haul, fifteen to seventeen
thousand dollars if you flatting ten sort of nine and
a half up for your fees. It's pretty easy to
kind of clock up twenty five, you know, thirty thousand
dollars a year just to go unit.

Speaker 8 (01:35:16):
You can't.

Speaker 2 (01:35:17):
You don't go just to fill in some time, Joe.
You need to have a plan and not wasting any
time when you get there.

Speaker 14 (01:35:23):
You know ironically that it's well and truly not true
anymore that just getting a degree not to set you
up for life. I mean, once upon a time you think, oh,
well you've done a degree, and there was a much
I mean, I'm sort of at the point now where
I started university. Just as they introduced fees, but they
were much lower than they are now, but also much

(01:35:44):
you know, far fewer people went to university, you know, now,
I guess you know it's I don't know which is
a better option where there's a lot more people can
go to university because you are able to access alone. However,
whether or not that degree is going to actually make
as much of a difference in your life is really questionable.

Speaker 2 (01:36:05):
I mean, Chris, you've got to be careful what you
go and do. You're also going to consider AI and
you know graduate jobs are down at the moment as well.
Do you think there could be a concern that, you know,
universities are going to struggle here, people are going to
go for certain degrees, other courses aren't going to be
so popular, There's going to be less fees coming in potentially,
and all of a sudden universities are having to increase

(01:36:26):
their fees.

Speaker 8 (01:36:28):
Yeah, I think that's a real gin you would be concerned.
I mean, the point you're making about the cost is
totally right.

Speaker 21 (01:36:33):
I just saw on Instagram the other day a friend
of mineament in my early forties, is just finished paying
off his student loan.

Speaker 8 (01:36:38):
You know, like it's it's that expensive. It takes you
decades to get rid of it.

Speaker 21 (01:36:42):
So you know, why are we removing a area that
just allows somebody to get in and then get out
of that debt fastest so they can be putting them
and into other parts of the economy.

Speaker 8 (01:36:51):
I think that also.

Speaker 21 (01:36:52):
The other point of university is that, yes, it's all
very important about what you study and make sure you're
picking the right things, but you know, university does teach
you the way to think and how to be critical
in terms of your thinking, which is really important.

Speaker 8 (01:37:03):
For all aspects of life.

Speaker 21 (01:37:05):
So I mean to admit that I'm like on details
in terms of how much money this fee at this
scheme would save. However, it doesn't feel like a huge
amount of money in the global scheme of things, so
it just just seems a bit redundant.

Speaker 2 (01:37:17):
Liking you hire a lot of young people to Chris,
are you getting the feeling that you know, young people
are going to stick around longer in New Zealand or
will they you know, head off overseas. Somebody said to me,
makes no different, so kids are going to Australia anyway.

Speaker 8 (01:37:30):
Yeah, I mean I'm a bit mixed about that one.

Speaker 21 (01:37:32):
I've put a wonderful group of young people that work
for me, and it has been with me for three
four or five years and they have throw no sign
of going anywhere. You know, Australia is great, there are
plenty of opportunities over there, but I think there's also
a lot.

Speaker 8 (01:37:44):
Of exciting stuff happening in our town.

Speaker 21 (01:37:46):
And I think that those that are in it and
are living in the city and working and finding ways
to do things here aren't so excited about the overseas
as some others. I think if you've got a good
job and you're enjoying the town, then and people are
sticking around, well, at least they are in my neck
of the words pantest well, I.

Speaker 2 (01:38:03):
Think that probably says something about you, Chris, and the
way you business.

Speaker 6 (01:38:06):
And the job that you do.

Speaker 2 (01:38:07):
There we go Joe off the back of this. Of course,
this was e leaked by Winston Peters. I seriously doubt
whether the Finance Minister was happy about this. Normally there
can be a few sort of pre budget announcements which
are a carefully curated event, and for this is to
be blurted out without there being any other messaging around
that I'm sure did not go down well. How much

(01:38:28):
of this is a problem for the Prime Minister. We
saw the emails recently that Winston Peter's also leaked about
the Prime Minister's thoughts on Iran, and now we have
this which is absolutely a slip up. Everybody knows the
first rule of budget is you don't leak the budget.

Speaker 14 (01:38:44):
Well, is it a slip up or you know, we
were talking about the emails on the Weekend Collective the
other day and you know, I said, it reminds you
that Peters is in opposition even when he is in government,
you know what I mean? And actually I think we're
very much going to see all three parties in this
coalition government well and truly attacking their coalition partners. So

(01:39:05):
I think this is a taste of what is to come.
I think calling it a slip up is very charitable
to Peter's, who frankly is a political animal and I
and I think he knows, you know the I don't
think this coalish and government has a lot of success
they can stand on and they're going to have to
turn on each other and I think we're going to

(01:39:25):
see a lot more of it in the run up
to the election.

Speaker 2 (01:39:29):
I think I think it's perfectly acceptable Chris that we
see them debating their views and policies on his shoes.
But is this helpful when you're actually when it comes
to the budget, you are actually all in this together.

Speaker 8 (01:39:47):
Oh? Absolutely, And I don't think I could have put
it any better than Joe.

Speaker 21 (01:39:51):
I mean, Winston Betters is out there with his bit
lighter and he's setting things on fire.

Speaker 14 (01:39:57):
Marshmallows everyone because.

Speaker 8 (01:40:01):
The bond, the bonfire is coming.

Speaker 21 (01:40:02):
I mean he The thing that I don't that I
can't quite understand is how to get to the end
of this election and say those parties are back in
a dominated position. How they're all going to sit around
a table and be like, oh, okay, well let's get
into government for three years.

Speaker 8 (01:40:14):
Because that's not how the way it's going to go.

Speaker 21 (01:40:16):
I mean, they're going to be getting back into government
if they are, but what two years eighteen months before
they turn on each other again. It's if I was
grist of Relaxan, I would be very nervous about all
of this.

Speaker 2 (01:40:28):
How do you Thomas Cogland said to me this morning
Joe that if that was a National Party minister who
had leaked that, they'd probably be sacked.

Speaker 3 (01:40:36):
Oh.

Speaker 14 (01:40:37):
I agree, you know, because it's so counter to the
spirit and it's countered to the spirit which I would
like to see my elected members of Parliament operating. I
would like them to be able to have really robust discussions,
but that will not be possible.

Speaker 2 (01:40:53):
When Peter's is leaking like a sief.

Speaker 14 (01:40:58):
It is own interest very.

Speaker 2 (01:41:01):
Quickly to the two of you local council amalgamation. They've
been given three months by the government to come up
with the plan as to how to do it, which
I think is actually almost impossible because it's really complicated
to merge counsels and people and jobs and work out
how to make it function and restructure itself works better. Right,
So do you think they can do it, Joe, come

(01:41:22):
up with a plan?

Speaker 3 (01:41:23):
Yes? Or no?

Speaker 14 (01:41:25):
Absolutely not. I mean, you know the reform is necessary,
but three months as a joke, and it's not just
three months. You know, regional counsels aren't able to put
proposals in as my understanding, they can't bring in any
external capability. And I'm not like, thank goodness, the consultants
will save us. But you know, this is asking an

(01:41:46):
impossible task of organizations that don't have that capacity and
funding and resource sitting around. I think it's it's almost
setting up to fail.

Speaker 8 (01:41:58):
Chris, Oh, I totally aggree.

Speaker 21 (01:42:01):
Think there's more of a chance of Winston Peter's going
around to Christopherluxant Doubt for a barbecue than there is
and there isn't then be able to get themselves together.
I think from my experience of local council, you know,
you've got your counselors at one end, but you've got
your board members and so there's a lot of people
to have different days on this, and I think that
saying three months is setting everyone up to fail, and
it seems silly unless is a counter intuitive option which

(01:42:22):
they don't want them to count with a plan.

Speaker 2 (01:42:23):
Possibly the intention the plan. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Joe McCarroll
and Chris Henry, thank you so much for your time
this morning. Very much appreciate it. Jason Pine is with
us next you with News TALKSB.

Speaker 1 (01:42:38):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks
at B.

Speaker 2 (01:42:44):
Jason Pine is up at midday with Weekends sports and
he joins me, now, good morning.

Speaker 3 (01:42:48):
Good morning.

Speaker 2 (01:42:48):
What have you got on the show's day.

Speaker 22 (01:42:50):
Well, I'm I'm going to drill down, I hope anyway
into this more Ona pacifica business is this rugby franchise
able to be saved? Because we've had a lot of
narrative this week about a consortium Canilla a Rugby who
believe that it can be and they are keen save it.
But they're just trying to get in front of the
right people and have the right conversations. The consortium is

(01:43:12):
made up of a number of former All Blacks. Three
of them are going to be on the show with
me after mid day, John Athua, Ben Artinger and Sam
tow we took Paul. All three are going to join
me after mid day. We're going to try and nut
this out. Who do they have to talk to, what's
the message they want to give and can Mowana Pacifica
be saved? Because I think we all want it to

(01:43:32):
be saved. We don't want to see a rugby team
cease to exist. All of the players, the staff, everybody
that's associated with a club just you know, just basically
kicked out. We want to see if we can save
this thing. So yeah, so more Onana pacific is our
focus after mid day.

Speaker 2 (01:43:47):
To day any Why what was the main reason for
the creation of Mina Pacifica.

Speaker 22 (01:43:52):
Well, I think apart from having another rugby team in
the in Super Rugby, it was to provide a professional
pathway for the best young Pacific Island players out of
Samoa and Tonga predominantly because we've got the Fiji and
Draw of course, who look after that pathway. The main
reason was that professional pathway for young Pacificland players so
they didn't have to go to the other side of

(01:44:13):
the world to be professional rugby players. And it also
would strengthen the respective sides of Tonga and some more
so that that was really the the idea behind it,
and to be a worthy participant in Super Rugby as well.

Speaker 2 (01:44:26):
Do you think that they've achieved those objectives?

Speaker 22 (01:44:28):
Well, certainly last year they were they were close to
making the playoffs. So we look at the performance part.
First of all, have they have they provided a pathway
for young Pacific Island players into their international sites. Yes,
I think they've done that. Have they strengthened some more
in Tonga? I think they probably you know, would say
that yes, they have so. Apart from the fact that

(01:44:49):
the owners pm A have decided that they don't have
the finances anymore to you know, to to basically own
the club to run the club. I think they've achieved
all the objectives. It's just the dollars and cents franchise
gap to run a rag be club.

Speaker 6 (01:45:03):
It's not cheap, you know.

Speaker 22 (01:45:04):
So so does Canilla Rugby have the fun? And what
is their vision for mo Onea PACIFICA I want to
chat about that afternoon nom fascinating.

Speaker 2 (01:45:10):
Now of course you're in Auckland yesterday calling Auckland f
C versus Adelaide last when I looked Aukland f C
were one up and I thought, oh yes, sweet, got it.
But of course it's a game of sport and anything
can happen. Can't buy me the next thing, I.

Speaker 6 (01:45:21):
Know it's a draw.

Speaker 22 (01:45:22):
Yeah, it's one. Also what happens now is the Second
League is an Adelaide on Friday. So effectively, now Francesca,
we're we're in the situation of an elimination final. It's
all square. I think we forget about last night we
head off to Adelaide, so it could be some of
the last week.

Speaker 2 (01:45:35):
Well, no, it's for a time of very much.

Speaker 22 (01:45:37):
Yeah, I know, I'm not sure the fans could take it,
but that's the situation that Auckland FC find themselves and
they go to Adelaide got to win the game. If
they do, they're into the Grand Final.

Speaker 2 (01:45:46):
Okay, what else are you going to cover on Sport today?

Speaker 22 (01:45:48):
I want to cover the Wellington Phoenix women who are
in the same situation. If they beat Brisbane this afternoon,
they will make the women's Grand Final for the first
time ever, so I want to cover that off. And
also Tom Latham on the show. The black Caps test
squad for upcoming matches against Ireland and England has been
named Tom Latham's the captain. He's going to join us
for a chat as well.

Speaker 2 (01:46:06):
Oh, another Action Pack show. Thank you so much, Piney,
looking forward to it. Jason Pinel, we be back with
you at midday. It is twenty to twelve.

Speaker 1 (01:46:13):
It's a Sunday session full show podcast on iHeartRadio powered
by News Talks atb.

Speaker 3 (01:46:20):
Travel with Winnie Woo tours Where the world is yours for.

Speaker 23 (01:46:24):
Now, Julie, Julie, Jollie, Joey. I'm begging of you, please
don't take momy.

Speaker 2 (01:46:41):
It is time to talk travel and Megan Singleton, blogger
at large dot com, has been in Pigeon Forge, which
does sound very much a place like a place that
you would find in the Smoky Mountains.

Speaker 24 (01:46:52):
Good morning, good morning, And that's exactly where it is,
and so that is the main town, the sort of
the hub of the gateway to the Smoky Mountains. So yeah,
I took my I dragged my group if we were
thirteen at this point, mainly for Dolly Parton, but actually
Pigeon Forge and the Smoky's were probably the highlight, more

(01:47:13):
of a highlight than Dollywood.

Speaker 10 (01:47:14):
I have to say.

Speaker 24 (01:47:15):
I've published a post on it tell you all about it.
So it's massive. I've actually just researched while I was
on hold. The Smoky Mountains spreads over two thousand square
kilometers and it goes between sort of North Carolina and Tennessee, and.

Speaker 18 (01:47:31):
It's really it's a bit different to New Zealand.

Speaker 14 (01:47:33):
When I went last year, I.

Speaker 24 (01:47:34):
Thought, oh, yeah, it could be in New Zealand. You know,
it's kind of hilly, but you'll find oaks and maples
and the sort of leafy, woodsy feel that we don't
really have hair when we go through our native forests.

Speaker 3 (01:47:46):
In the.

Speaker 24 (01:47:48):
Buildings churches, I took a photo of a great.

Speaker 4 (01:47:55):
Megan.

Speaker 2 (01:47:55):
We're losing you can you just move to somewhere else hume,
we'll just move around a little bit.

Speaker 8 (01:47:59):
We're losing you.

Speaker 2 (01:47:59):
But then we go, okay, stay right there, there we.

Speaker 14 (01:48:01):
Go, Okay, I'm stopping.

Speaker 18 (01:48:03):
I normady go off my stupid Wi Fi to talk
to you.

Speaker 24 (01:48:06):
So sorry anyway, but the gravestone said he was murdered,
and I quite thought that was quite something, so I've
put that on the blog.

Speaker 2 (01:48:15):
Then what else, What does moonshine taste like moonshine?

Speaker 24 (01:48:20):
Well, that is actually a white spirit made from corn
hash and it was how they made illicit booze back
in the in the prohibition time. So it's basically just
high proof alcohol. But we went moonshine tasting where the
guy brings it back a little bit to probably about
thirty forty percent proof, and then he makes flavors like

(01:48:42):
key lime pie and chocolate and all sorts of other
things with it. So moonshine tasting was actually more fun
than I thought it was going to be because it
last that I've tasted it was like fuel.

Speaker 2 (01:48:53):
That was quite weird doing one of the things. I
would love to go hiking in the US, but I'm
just too scared about the beers.

Speaker 24 (01:49:01):
Yes, So in between May and November, is bear season,
but these are the black bears and you have to
stay at a distance from them. They do have cubs,
so don't go up for a selfie with a cub.
But there we did see some and there were people
walking along with their enormous camera lenses that were all

(01:49:21):
covered in camo colors. I thought that was a bit
odd and just to try and photograph these gorgeous little
bears that look like toys. But Mama is very nearby,
so but the traffic was just crawling because we saw
a bear in a tree and I've actually put a
photo up of this cute little bear looking down going
what the heck, what are you all doing down there?

Speaker 14 (01:49:42):
And it was at a standstill.

Speaker 24 (01:49:43):
But driving through Cade's Cove during the Smokies is the
one of the most beautiful things you can do. And
you can pull off and have a picnic and the butterflies.
You know, Dolly's got a song about the butterflies, one
of the first songs she ever wrote. There's so many
butterflies in the Smoky Mountains, just everywhere beautiful.

Speaker 4 (01:50:01):
Who would not.

Speaker 2 (01:50:02):
I'm sure you've got some fabitous photos for us.

Speaker 24 (01:50:05):
I have, and I've been working away for two days
getting those up for you.

Speaker 18 (01:50:09):
So there's there.

Speaker 2 (01:50:10):
Excellent works. If you want to know more about this area,
head to blogger at large dot com. Thank you so much, Megan.
All I can remember about bears is that if it's brown,
laid down, if it's black, fight back, if it's white,
good night. But the problem is, every time I think
if I saw a beer, I'd be so panicked, I'd
never actually be able to remember the rhyme, and I
wouldn't know whether I'm supposed to be running or lying
down or releast if it's a polar bee. You know,

(01:50:32):
that's all. It's good night, nurse. You don't have to
worry about how to respond to.

Speaker 8 (01:50:35):
That, right.

Speaker 2 (01:50:36):
Coming up next, Joan McKenzie is with us to talk.

Speaker 15 (01:50:39):
Books books with Wickles for the Best Election of greet Reeves.

Speaker 2 (01:50:46):
Joining me now is Wickles Book by Joan McKenzie. Good morning, morning, Okay,
I am really intrigued. Catherine Stockett, yes, has a new
book out, and of course I can remember. I think
it was her last book, The Help. It's really clearly,
but how many years ago was that?

Speaker 25 (01:51:01):
Seventeen years since They Help and nothing in between. No,
but this book is six hundred and thirty pages long. Okay,
so it's properly taken her most of seventeen years to
write it.

Speaker 2 (01:51:12):
I think it must have, yes, tell me about it. Well.

Speaker 25 (01:51:17):
Like The Help, it's set in Mississippi, which actually is
also where the author lives, and it takes place in
the nineteen thirties during what was Prohibition and the Great Depression.
And it's a book about women and the lot they've
been dealt in life and what they need to do
to survive, especially in that era. So there's a lead
character whose name is Bridy. Her family a penniless they're desperate.

(01:51:39):
She's dispatched to visit her sister who lives some distance away,
to beg her sister and her husband for financial support.
And when she gets there, she finds that the sister
has become a bit of a socialite do gooder, and
she volunteers for a local charity, which happens to be
a pretty ghastly orphanage where one of the children is

(01:51:59):
a nine year old girl called Meg whose mother abandoned
her and she's waiting endlessly for a nice family to
come along and adopt her, which of course doesn't happen,
and she and Bertie develop a bond, and from then
on this story is told from each of their points
of view. Bertie is increasingly desperate for money, and to

(01:52:19):
stave off destitution, she goes way off the reservation. She
teams up with a woman she call she meets called Charlie,
who has connections with the loose side of town and
nothing left to lose, and the two of them open
a brothel and to speak easy, which is well frequented
by the local men, but obviously it's really high risk
because of the social maraus at the time and the

(01:52:43):
very conservative southern nature of where they are. And they
call this venture the Calamity Club, which is where the
title comes from. And they give a number of women
the chance to earn a living, which, of course during
the depression was really important potentially, however, you earn it
very precarious existence, but they were precarious times. I really

(01:53:05):
liked the way that she put all the threads together
of nine year old Meg and Birdie and her story
and brought them all together in what I thought at
the ending was really compelling in a really touching way.
But as I said, it is six hundred and thirty
pages so it's a big whopper.

Speaker 2 (01:53:19):
It's efty, all right, Then tell me about the Wife,
the Maid and the Mistress.

Speaker 25 (01:53:25):
Isn't that a great title?

Speaker 2 (01:53:26):
It's a title.

Speaker 25 (01:53:27):
It's by Ariel Lahon, and I'll spell her surname for
anyone who might be interested. It's lawhon and interesting. Actually
completely coincidentally, both of the books today have got a
common theme about Prohibition and the Depression, because clearly that
was the Calamity Club.

Speaker 14 (01:53:43):
But at what cause?

Speaker 25 (01:53:44):
We're huge fans of Ariel Lahon's books. She did something
called The Frozen River, which we all loved. And what
she's really good at is fictionalizing real historical events and
making them into great stories. And this was actually her
first book, which she did back in twenty fourteen, and
now she's become such a name that the publisher has
reissued it. It's a case which has been a source

(01:54:08):
of intrigue in New York, in particular because it's based
on the true story of a well known judge. He
was a New York State Supreme Court justice named Joseph Crater,
and in nineteen thirty one night he went out to
dinner and then got in a taxi afterwards. Since he
was never seen again, and there was a lot of
intrigue about this disappearance. And back then New York was

(01:54:28):
a really seedy, smoky, scrappy place with prohibition going on,
and the Mob was in charge of New York, and
there was lots of corruption in the police and in
the judiciary. And some of this takes place in a
speakeasy which was frequented by the judge and owned by
a well known gangster of the day, a real guy
called Arnie Madden, and on stage one night in the

(01:54:50):
book and at the time as it happened, there's a
woman singing who turns out to be a very young
billy Holiday, So she brings in real character into this story.
And every year, on the anniversary of the judges disappear,
Arance's wife goes back to this speakeasy to have a drink.
What might't be speakeasy anymore, but you know, it was

(01:55:11):
to have a drink with the cop who investigated the case.
And at the time he disappeared, there were three significant
women in his life, his wife, the maid who looked
after his apartment, and his lover. And in the author's note,
the author says she's attempting to show what could have
happened to the judge, not necessarily what did, but I
love what she's come up with because he was a

(01:55:32):
pretty unlikable guy. And I love the way that she's
fictionalized exactly what might have happened. It's really good, fascinating,
Okay Jones. So that last book was The Wife, the Maid,
and the Mistress by Ariel Lahon. And also the first
book that Jones spoke about was The Calamity Club by
Catherine Stockett.

Speaker 2 (01:55:49):
Thank you so much. Talk next week.

Speaker 1 (01:55:50):
Thank you the Sunday Session Full show podcast on my
Heart Radio powered by News Talks.

Speaker 10 (01:55:56):
I'd be.

Speaker 2 (01:55:59):
Thank you so much for your company today. Thank you
so much to Carrie and Locke for producing the show.
Coming up next week on the show, I'm very excited
one of my favorite narrative non fiction authors, Patrick redd
and Keith, is going to be with us. He is
coming out to New Zealand for the Auckland Riders Festival.
He wrote a book called Empire of Pain, which was
all about the Sackler family and oxy and things like that.

(01:56:20):
He was kind of the first to look into it.
He has a new book out. It's called London falling
and it tells another extraordinary story. I'm absolutely loving it.
I'm in the middle of that right now, so really
looking forward to talking to him about that. And we're
also going to have Australian guitar legend, Tommy Emmanuel, joined
us and he's going to perform live in studio, which
I'm very looking forward to. You're listening to his lovely
strumming in the background now, so enjoy the rest of

(01:56:42):
your Sunday, Mums. I hope you loved and looked after,
and I look forward to catching up with you next week.
Take care.

Speaker 3 (01:57:06):
Or from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin.

Speaker 1 (01:57:09):
Listen live to News Talks at b from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

The MeatEater Podcast

Crime Junkie

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Full Show Podcast: 10 May 2026

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

The MeatEater Podcast

Crime Junkie

All Episodes

Full Show Podcast: 10 May 2026

Stuff You Should Know