Afternoon Edition: 07 March 2025

The Afternoon Edition of News Fix for 07 March 2025, straight from the Newstalk ZB newsroom - bringing you everything you need to know in news, politics, business, entertainment and sport.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Good afternoon. I'm Raylen Ramsey. This is your afternoon news
fix for Friday, the seventh of March. A major issue
with Health New Zealand's IT services and how it deals
with its billions of public money. Health New Zealands today
published its long awaited financial review, conducted by Deloitte. Political
reporter Azaria Howell has more.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
One excel spreadsheet. Our public health agency has been tracking
and reporting its financial performance through just a single file.
The report says the use of the file to track
performance for a twenty eight billion dollar expenditure organization raises
significant concerns, especially when better systems are available.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Meanwhile, the Health Minister says he doesn't want a public
versus private sector situation. Simeon Brown has announced plans to
work more with private providers, hoping to take a long
waiting list. Health and Z's also getting its board back,
replaced last year with Commissioner Lesta Levy. He'll finish up
in July. Brown says there's a lot of private health capacity.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
One of the concerns in the past has been that
it's about competition. Actually our competitions with Australia, not with
our salves, and that's the focus that I want to
have as we outsource those elective surgeries.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Delight from Federated farmers over the government's acknowledgment of dry
weather Agriculture Minister Todd McLay has declared drought conditions for
the Northland, Wycotzel Horizons and mulbre Tasman regions. The Government's
providing one hundred thousand dollars to support to rural support
groups helping farmers and affected regions. Wycott Le president Keith

(01:42):
Holmes says it'll be put to good use. It allowed
the Rural Support Trust to get out there, talk to
farmers and talk to the community so they can be proactive.
Police are asking people to steer clear of a bush
fire in the Far North's Awarua reported. Just after midday, sisters,
responding to Winston Peters proposed cull of diversity roles in

(02:05):
the public service. The New Zealand FIRS leaders introduced a
member's bill to dump diversity, equity and Inclusion directives. Currently,
the Public Service Commissioner has to develop a social diversity
Plan and panels must consider diversity and inclusion when hiring
for boards. Nationals Christ Bishop says they'll consider the bill.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
WHATLL I would say in a general sense is that
we believe in meritocracy and we believe in quality over
identity politics.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
An Australian team has appeared in court for allegedly breaching
an airport fence to get on a jetstar plane with
a shotgun. The seventeen year olds charged with offences including
unlawfully taking control of an aircraft orchestrating a bomb, hoax
and possessing a firearm. A SpaceX Starship rocket has exploded

(02:54):
on a test flight, dumping debris on Florida and the Caribbean.
Images show debris flying like shooting stars, and the aviation
authorities stopped flights into some Florida airports. CNN's Kristen Fisher
says the rocket blew up after just eight minutes.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
This explosion follows the almost the exact same signature and
pattern as what happened during the previous test flight, Plight
Test seven, which was exactly seven weeks ago.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Today in Sport, the chorus of outrage over the treatment
of the traveling Fiji and Drewer in New Zealand is
growing after the Fijians had to pile into the back
of a truck when transport arrangements fell through before they
faced the Hurricanes in Napier. The Wellington Phoenix Men remained
confident of making the post season despite slumming near the

(03:43):
bottom of the A League ladder, and a seventeen point
four million dollar reward has been offered for the capture
a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder, Ryan Wedding, is accused of
running a transnational drug trafficking ring and orchestrating multiple murders.
That is your latest news fix. We'll be back with
the next update tomorrow morning from the news Talk zed

(04:06):
B newsroom.