May 31, 2025 • 10 mins
This week on The Sunday Panel, Newstalk ZB’s Roman Travers and host of The Prosperity Project, Nadine Higgins, joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day - and more!
Should the Government follow the UK's lead and regulate - or ban - explicit AI deepfakes? Can we put protections in place?
Jacinda Ardern's new book is set to be released this week. Will we read it? What do we think?
LISTEN ABOVE
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
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 Rudgin
from News talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Joining me now for the panel. Here on the Sunday Session,
We've got News talk EDBS, Roman Travors.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Good morning, Good lord, you're looking glorious this morning. You
really are like a supermodel. I'm not is it Ai?
Or are you real?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Sunday morning?
Speaker 3 (00:26):
All right, it's Sunday morning.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I always look a bit rough on a Sunday super goods.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Are you being very sweet?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
And Nadeen Higgins is joining us, host of the Prosperity Project.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
How are you, Nadeane?
Speaker 4 (00:37):
I am well, thank you?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
How are you well?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Apparently amazing? Look glowing.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Nadine, you're looking good too.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
By the way, See I know that's a lie because
I've got a ten week old baby and so my
oh congratulations, thank you, thank you, and a toddlers.
Speaker 5 (00:53):
So I'm a busy girl. And so how I look
is it's not home on my list of Priori exciting times?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Now, look, this morning we had a conversation about deep
fakes AI sexually explicit deep fakes. Well, I'm hugely concerned
about this. I have been watching the way sort of
technology is just flying ahead, and we are you know,
the US is dealing with this, the UK are dealing
with it, and we just sort of sit here twiddling
(01:22):
our thumbs, going, yeah, we probably should kind of include
this and make this illegal and give some validation to
victims and maybe give them some support at some point,
but let's just think about it for a little bit
longer as technology keeps rocking on Roman and I just
think that this is I mean, it's not often I
actually agree with an Act principle, sorry, an Act sort
of policy, but I think that we just need to
move on this.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I think you're right. I think we need to have
ahkoy on this at some point, with the ACT party
out the front. But I often get requests for nude shots,
and as the host of in my day, I'm very
happy to send out nude shots because I need to
pay a mortgage off. I've got a leaky building, so
any money at all, I'd love to see what I
look like deep faked. But I also think more seriously
(02:03):
that the Internet is an unleashed dog. Try and that
one and right, How the heck do you control something
that's uncontrollable?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Definitely, But I don't. And look, I don't know whether
by actually closing up this loophole Nadine and making it
clear that the deep fakes are also illegal and it's
not acceptable behavior within society, whether the police are going
to be able to do anything about it. But what
I really do like was the fact that act MP
Laura mcclurcy. We've also got to provide support for the
(02:33):
people who are victims. And that's where I go, Yes,
let's step up and make sure we're putting the right
mental health care in place for these people.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
Oh absolutely.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
I don't think it's necessarily going to change things overnight,
but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be illegal, you know,
like it's illegal to murder people, and people still do it,
but there has to be a course of action to
try and prosecute the perpetrators and also just to make
the stance that this is wrong, you know, because it is.
It's just an extension to me of your body, my choice.
(03:04):
You know, it's all well and good to kind of,
you know, do it to yourself, but when someone else
is doing it to you, that is a form of abuse,
and so we absolutely need I mean, it's so telling
that even the Trump administration, which doesn't exactly have a
great history of standing up for the rights of women
in particular, they've moved on this. We are so behind
(03:27):
the times.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Do you think this should be a members' bility?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Do you think that?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I mean, I don't think this is even I don't
think politics needs to get involved.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
I'd realize, do you know what the very fact that
certain politicians are saying, oh, that's not something we're focused on,
or you know, they're just idiots, because this is incredibly important.
People's privacy is all you actually have when you close
your door at home, when you sit there in your
underpants watching Netflix or whatever, that's your only privacy, right,
So when someone's extorting that in the Dean and you know,
(03:54):
I just think you'd be it's super slimy and creepy.
But I do go back to the point that you
try and rain this in the Internet. People who are
posting wacky whack whack job stuff, they're doing it behind
all sorts of different walls and you can't find them.
They're all, you know, bald toothless Russians sitting in their dirty,
old Holy similet in Moscow, pretending that they're twenty five
year old supermodels.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
I hear you, but I think that there are also
teenagers in New Zealand that are doing this, and so
just because it's hard doesn't mean we shouldn't try. And
as I understand that, this is a very simple amendment
to maybe two acts of just inserting a couple of lines.
So come on, it's not that hard. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
The other point that Francesca made, and it really it's
it rang a bell in my head. Department mental Health,
good luck with getting any more money for mental health
or addressing people's needs, because at the moment, we've got
streets filled. Masterton has homeless people. For God's sake, you
look at big cities with homeless people, all sorts of
mental health issues, and we've got governments successively who don't.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yeah, absolutely a bit. A simple step there is that
acc currently provides or pays for therapy for sexual abuse victims,
and I don't see why that can't be extended here
because that's actually what's happened. So you know, there's a
pretty simple move there to extend that.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
And they've got lots of monkey.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Sure you've got to go, yeah, sure, you've got to
go and find therapists, which are a little bit short
on the ground at the moment. But there is a
pretty simple, as Nadine said, it's a couple of lines
in an act and just making sure that there's some
support there for people.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yeah, and you know, but don't you both find it
absolutely obscene And I mean that quite seriously too, that
politicians are dithering on it.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I mean it took many years. I mean, how many
years does it take for a government find and go,
let's not have phones in schools. Most schools have decided
a long time ago we're not having phones in the classroom.
I mean, you know, that was just my thought on it.
But it looks good and it sounds good, doesn't it now.
I'd like to see them jump up on this one too. Hey, Nadine,
I want to run something past you this morning. I
(05:58):
just made a comment about theok the fact that just
into Ardun's book is coming out this week on the
third of June, and she has done some selected media
and her first very long form interview was with The
Guardian and I was kind of making I sort of
read out a few of the comments that she'd made
and her thoughts on why she left and dealing with
the pandemic and things like that. We were inundated with
(06:22):
techs of people saying I am triggered.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
You know, this is.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
You know too much for me. You know, I don't
think she can ever live here again, and things like that,
and I was a little bit surprised. I wondered whether
we'd moved on a little bit. Do you find her triggering?
Speaker 5 (06:41):
Absolutely not, whether or not you agree with her politics.
She was a leader during a very unusual time in
our history where an awful lot happened, and I think
she dealt with it in the best way she thought.
And that's all you can ask our leaders to do.
And if we're going to cast them out.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Of the country because we don't agree with the decisions
that they make, we're going to find it read really
hard to get good quality people to actually go into politics.
So I think if you're triggered, you know, maybe seek
countsel counseling.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I wonder, though, Roman, whether she feels she can come
back and live here calmly and quietly in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Just remember that, you know, the barking, misogynist, mad dog
stuff that you're reading on the text machine, that's a
very small percentage of New Zealand. No world leader was
liked through the pandemic. What a heck of a hospital
passed that was? And you know what the things that
people focus on are she destroyed the country forgetting that
the national government we're campaigning for bigger wage subsidies. So
(07:48):
you know, whether you like her or not, whether you
want to read her book or not, I don't really care.
But you know, rain it in. Focus on the policy,
not the person, play the ball, not the player whatever.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
You know.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Well, And the other thing is, we don't know what
the counterfactual was, right, We don't know what the outcome
would have been if we had had a government of
a different flavor power during the pandemic. Would it have
been better, would it have been worse? Would we have
had twenty thousand deaths like the you know, the hypothesis was,
would we have had even more debt?
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Who knows?
Speaker 4 (08:17):
I think we have to It happened, and she.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
Is well within her rights to talk about it.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
It's time we all moved on.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
She speaks in the book about how she was in
a I think in a oh gosh, she was washing
her hands. She was in the toilets at Orgland Airport
and a woman came up and leaned in. She was
so close that ar Doom could feel the heat from
her skin, and she just what she said. I just
wanted to say thank you. The woman said, thanks for
ruining the country, and she turned and left Ardurn standing
(08:44):
there as if I was a high schooler who had
just been raised. So this is just Sindra Adun talking
about experience she had with, you know, somebody in New Zealand.
I do wonder whether times have changed. And gosh, we're
talking about this morning as well, the fact that people
think it's perfectly fine to abuse refs and sideline reefs
and coaches, and have we lost our ability to do
(09:06):
exactly what you said, Roman, to actually step back and
separate the person from the policy and just be a
little bit more rational when it comes to how we react.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
There's not a lot of objectivity anymore, because going back
to the Internet, it gives you the ability to be
I can be Barry Soper, I can be anyone I want.
I can be a commentator. I've got a following of
thirteen people who all agree with me because I've turned
into a misogynist pig. And let's be honest. Some women
have turned into misogynist pigs as well, because there's this
outpouring of hatred towards someone who has given the job
(09:38):
that we elected her to do. The majority did to
run the country through an absolutely shitty time. Right, So
you know, I'm not going to read the book. Do
I dislike it?
Speaker 1 (09:47):
No?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Do I even know?
Speaker 5 (09:48):
No.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
I wouldn't want to have been the leader through the
pandemic though, and the Dean would have done a good job.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Yeah, I don't think so.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
I wouldn't have done a good job.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
But I do find that her narrative around the fact
that you can still be a leader of whatever flavor
and be a sensitive person.
Speaker 5 (10:07):
I find that quite reassuring.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
I have to be honest, and also, given the aforementioned
two small children, I have a huge amount of respect
for the fact that she managed to do all that
while raising a child.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, Nadine Higgins, thank you so much for your time
this morning. Roman travers these consensual nudes that you have
prepared to sell, What do you think they're worth?
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Oh, look, I think they're worth thousands, but like nineteen
ninety five for a series of six. If you're into it,
you know, got to pay for the brocoli and cheese somehow.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Goodness gracious, Thank you both so much.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks It'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Joining me now for the panel. Here on the Sunday Session,
We've got News talk EDBS, Roman Travors.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Good morning, Good lord, you're looking glorious this morning. You
really are like a supermodel. I'm not is it Ai?
Or are you real?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Sunday morning?
Speaker 3 (00:26):
All right, it's Sunday morning.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I always look a bit rough on a Sunday super goods.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Are you being very sweet?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
And Nadeen Higgins is joining us, host of the Prosperity Project.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
How are you, Nadeane?
Speaker 4 (00:37):
I am well, thank you?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
How are you well?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Apparently amazing? Look glowing.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Nadine, you're looking good too.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
By the way, See I know that's a lie because
I've got a ten week old baby and so my
oh congratulations, thank you, thank you, and a toddlers.
Speaker 5 (00:53):
So I'm a busy girl. And so how I look
is it's not home on my list of Priori exciting times?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Now, look, this morning we had a conversation about deep
fakes AI sexually explicit deep fakes. Well, I'm hugely concerned
about this. I have been watching the way sort of
technology is just flying ahead, and we are you know,
the US is dealing with this, the UK are dealing
with it, and we just sort of sit here twiddling
(01:22):
our thumbs, going, yeah, we probably should kind of include
this and make this illegal and give some validation to
victims and maybe give them some support at some point,
but let's just think about it for a little bit
longer as technology keeps rocking on Roman and I just
think that this is I mean, it's not often I
actually agree with an Act principle, sorry, an Act sort
of policy, but I think that we just need to
move on this.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I think you're right. I think we need to have
ahkoy on this at some point, with the ACT party
out the front. But I often get requests for nude shots,
and as the host of in my day, I'm very
happy to send out nude shots because I need to
pay a mortgage off. I've got a leaky building, so
any money at all, I'd love to see what I
look like deep faked. But I also think more seriously
(02:03):
that the Internet is an unleashed dog. Try and that
one and right, How the heck do you control something
that's uncontrollable?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Definitely, But I don't. And look, I don't know whether
by actually closing up this loophole Nadine and making it
clear that the deep fakes are also illegal and it's
not acceptable behavior within society, whether the police are going
to be able to do anything about it. But what
I really do like was the fact that act MP
Laura mcclurcy. We've also got to provide support for the
(02:33):
people who are victims. And that's where I go, Yes,
let's step up and make sure we're putting the right
mental health care in place for these people.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
Oh absolutely.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
I don't think it's necessarily going to change things overnight,
but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be illegal, you know,
like it's illegal to murder people, and people still do it,
but there has to be a course of action to
try and prosecute the perpetrators and also just to make
the stance that this is wrong, you know, because it is.
It's just an extension to me of your body, my choice.
(03:04):
You know, it's all well and good to kind of,
you know, do it to yourself, but when someone else
is doing it to you, that is a form of abuse,
and so we absolutely need I mean, it's so telling
that even the Trump administration, which doesn't exactly have a
great history of standing up for the rights of women
in particular, they've moved on this. We are so behind
(03:27):
the times.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Do you think this should be a members' bility?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Do you think that?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I mean, I don't think this is even I don't
think politics needs to get involved.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
I'd realize, do you know what the very fact that
certain politicians are saying, oh, that's not something we're focused on,
or you know, they're just idiots, because this is incredibly important.
People's privacy is all you actually have when you close
your door at home, when you sit there in your
underpants watching Netflix or whatever, that's your only privacy, right,
So when someone's extorting that in the Dean and you know,
(03:54):
I just think you'd be it's super slimy and creepy.
But I do go back to the point that you
try and rain this in the Internet. People who are
posting wacky whack whack job stuff, they're doing it behind
all sorts of different walls and you can't find them.
They're all, you know, bald toothless Russians sitting in their dirty,
old Holy similet in Moscow, pretending that they're twenty five
year old supermodels.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
I hear you, but I think that there are also
teenagers in New Zealand that are doing this, and so
just because it's hard doesn't mean we shouldn't try. And
as I understand that, this is a very simple amendment
to maybe two acts of just inserting a couple of lines.
So come on, it's not that hard. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
The other point that Francesca made, and it really it's
it rang a bell in my head. Department mental Health,
good luck with getting any more money for mental health
or addressing people's needs, because at the moment, we've got
streets filled. Masterton has homeless people. For God's sake, you
look at big cities with homeless people, all sorts of
mental health issues, and we've got governments successively who don't.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yeah, absolutely a bit. A simple step there is that
acc currently provides or pays for therapy for sexual abuse victims,
and I don't see why that can't be extended here
because that's actually what's happened. So you know, there's a
pretty simple move there to extend that.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
And they've got lots of monkey.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Sure you've got to go, yeah, sure, you've got to
go and find therapists, which are a little bit short
on the ground at the moment. But there is a
pretty simple, as Nadine said, it's a couple of lines
in an act and just making sure that there's some
support there for people.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yeah, and you know, but don't you both find it
absolutely obscene And I mean that quite seriously too, that
politicians are dithering on it.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I mean it took many years. I mean, how many
years does it take for a government find and go,
let's not have phones in schools. Most schools have decided
a long time ago we're not having phones in the classroom.
I mean, you know, that was just my thought on it.
But it looks good and it sounds good, doesn't it now.
I'd like to see them jump up on this one too. Hey, Nadine,
I want to run something past you this morning. I
(05:58):
just made a comment about theok the fact that just
into Ardun's book is coming out this week on the
third of June, and she has done some selected media
and her first very long form interview was with The
Guardian and I was kind of making I sort of
read out a few of the comments that she'd made
and her thoughts on why she left and dealing with
the pandemic and things like that. We were inundated with
(06:22):
techs of people saying I am triggered.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
You know, this is.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
You know too much for me. You know, I don't
think she can ever live here again, and things like that,
and I was a little bit surprised. I wondered whether
we'd moved on a little bit. Do you find her triggering?
Speaker 5 (06:41):
Absolutely not, whether or not you agree with her politics.
She was a leader during a very unusual time in
our history where an awful lot happened, and I think
she dealt with it in the best way she thought.
And that's all you can ask our leaders to do.
And if we're going to cast them out.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Of the country because we don't agree with the decisions
that they make, we're going to find it read really
hard to get good quality people to actually go into politics.
So I think if you're triggered, you know, maybe seek
countsel counseling.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I wonder, though, Roman, whether she feels she can come
back and live here calmly and quietly in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Just remember that, you know, the barking, misogynist, mad dog
stuff that you're reading on the text machine, that's a
very small percentage of New Zealand. No world leader was
liked through the pandemic. What a heck of a hospital
passed that was? And you know what the things that
people focus on are she destroyed the country forgetting that
the national government we're campaigning for bigger wage subsidies. So
(07:48):
you know, whether you like her or not, whether you
want to read her book or not, I don't really care.
But you know, rain it in. Focus on the policy,
not the person, play the ball, not the player whatever.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
You know.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Well, And the other thing is, we don't know what
the counterfactual was, right, We don't know what the outcome
would have been if we had had a government of
a different flavor power during the pandemic. Would it have
been better, would it have been worse? Would we have
had twenty thousand deaths like the you know, the hypothesis was,
would we have had even more debt?
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Who knows?
Speaker 4 (08:17):
I think we have to It happened, and she.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
Is well within her rights to talk about it.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
It's time we all moved on.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
She speaks in the book about how she was in
a I think in a oh gosh, she was washing
her hands. She was in the toilets at Orgland Airport
and a woman came up and leaned in. She was
so close that ar Doom could feel the heat from
her skin, and she just what she said. I just
wanted to say thank you. The woman said, thanks for
ruining the country, and she turned and left Ardurn standing
(08:44):
there as if I was a high schooler who had
just been raised. So this is just Sindra Adun talking
about experience she had with, you know, somebody in New Zealand.
I do wonder whether times have changed. And gosh, we're
talking about this morning as well, the fact that people
think it's perfectly fine to abuse refs and sideline reefs
and coaches, and have we lost our ability to do
(09:06):
exactly what you said, Roman, to actually step back and
separate the person from the policy and just be a
little bit more rational when it comes to how we react.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
There's not a lot of objectivity anymore, because going back
to the Internet, it gives you the ability to be
I can be Barry Soper, I can be anyone I want.
I can be a commentator. I've got a following of
thirteen people who all agree with me because I've turned
into a misogynist pig. And let's be honest. Some women
have turned into misogynist pigs as well, because there's this
outpouring of hatred towards someone who has given the job
(09:38):
that we elected her to do. The majority did to
run the country through an absolutely shitty time. Right, So
you know, I'm not going to read the book. Do
I dislike it?
Speaker 1 (09:47):
No?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Do I even know?
Speaker 5 (09:48):
No.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
I wouldn't want to have been the leader through the
pandemic though, and the Dean would have done a good job.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Yeah, I don't think so.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
I wouldn't have done a good job.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
But I do find that her narrative around the fact
that you can still be a leader of whatever flavor
and be a sensitive person.
Speaker 5 (10:07):
I find that quite reassuring.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
I have to be honest, and also, given the aforementioned
two small children, I have a huge amount of respect
for the fact that she managed to do all that
while raising a child.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, Nadine Higgins, thank you so much for your time
this morning. Roman travers these consensual nudes that you have
prepared to sell, What do you think they're worth?
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Oh, look, I think they're worth thousands, but like nineteen
ninety five for a series of six. If you're into it,
you know, got to pay for the brocoli and cheese somehow.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Goodness gracious, Thank you both so much.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks It'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
Popular Podcasts
True Crime Tonight
If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.