Full Show Podcast: 16 March 2025

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

Speaker 2 (00:11):
EDB.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Welcome to the Sunday Session with Francesca.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Rudkin and Wiggles for the best selection of great reeds
used course.

Speaker 4 (00:20):
EDB, Welcome to the Sunday Session. I'm Francesca Rudkin, with
you until midday. Lovely to have you with us. Coming
up on the show today, I'm joined by Jeffrey Rush,
star of films such as Shakespeare and Love Shine, The
King's Speech, Pirates of the Caribbean, and a brand new

(00:42):
Kiwi film called The Rule of Jenny Penn. The film
opens this weekend and stars John Lethgo along with an
amazing local cast. Jeffrey Rush is with me after ten.
I am very excited because after eleven Finn Andrews from
The Veils is with me to talk about his hauntingly
beautiful new album Asphodel's. Finn got his first record deal

(01:03):
at age sixteen. It's now twenty years the band released
their debut album. We're going to talk about two decades
in the biz, and Finn is going to perform a
song for us too. And in just a moment, tend
be power on what Pale, on what Ukraine needs from
peacekeepers and how New Zealand can help. And as always
you're most welcome to text anytime throughout the morning. On

(01:24):
ninety two, ninety two the Sunday session. So it has
been a very busy and important week for the Prime Minister.
There was a reason he championed the Investments Summit and
made himself available to attendees to a degree unusual for
a Prime Minister at events like this, Plain and simple,
he desperately needed it to be needs it to be successful.

(01:48):
He has staked his leadership on growing our economy, which
includes creating an infrastructure pipeline and attracting the overseas finance
to help get things done.

Speaker 5 (01:58):
And it's going to.

Speaker 4 (01:58):
Take some time to evaluate the summit's success. But the
Prime Minister would have been buoyed to hear that the
Italian tunneling company behind Auckland's massive and accept a waste
water project say it will keep workers and machinery in
New Zealand. Now the Government has outlined a proposed pipeline
of infrastructure projects, so that's an early win, and wins
are what the Prime Minister and coalition need. Two polls

(02:21):
this week showed support for Labor higher than National and
Labor leader cris Haipkins overtaking Luxena's preferred prime minister. It's
not just the National Party who might be slightly concerned.
The taxpayer's union career. Polls saw act to drop twoero
point three to seven point seven percent and New Zealand
First drop one point three to five point one percent. Now,
I know there's a lot of skepticism about Poles, it's

(02:43):
not as if Labor are presenting an alternative, invigorating vision
that's dragging voters over. The concern for the government is
they don't seem to need to. There's some wisdom in
Labour sitting back and letting the government lose support all
on their own. The declining trend in popularity and the
Prime Minister's inability to get traction will irk the hard
working coalition, especially because they are undoubtedly hard working. But

(03:09):
for voters it only counts if it leads to results.
The Prime Minister can't be panicked. He doesn't have the time,
but the pressure is on. Last night, Christopher Luxeen headed
off for his first visit to India as Prime Minister.
In an attempt to deliver another election promise by securing
a free trade agreement during his first term in government. Apparently,
the best we can expect is to establish a time

(03:31):
frame for when they begin formal negotiations. Luxen needs to
come home with this, at least at a minimum. Next
week also sees Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters in the
US discussing New Zealand's relationship with the Trump administration. Peters
will meet with the Secretary of State MARCYO Rubio and

(03:51):
other US political contacts to discuss a wide range of
international issues, including no doubt tariffs. Peters is the man
for the job, but once again the pressure is on
as the Prime Minister and government are learning results take time,
but voters are not as patient as they used to
be and their politics is centered on a cost of
living and making ends meet. While there is no imminent

(04:15):
danger to leadership, the polls are a flashing light that
without some big wins soon they may run out of time.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
The Sunday session.

Speaker 4 (04:25):
So each member of the coalition has its stresses at
the moment, don't they. Lux And is dealing with economic growth,
Peter's with the Trump administration and Seymour is still trying
to work out how to make a school lunch. So
as I said, pressure is on, but I don't see
any change in leadership coming soon. Stability is key, but
do you ninety two ninety two is the text. It

(04:46):
is eleven past nine. You're with Newstalks VB Relax.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
It's still the weekend.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudgin and Wiggles for
the best selection of great reeds.

Speaker 4 (04:57):
Use talk ZB fourteen past nine now. A call last
night between Ukraine allies the Coalition of the Willing is
said to have moved keeping plans into an operational phase
of planning. The call, led by UK Prime Minister Kirstarma,
included Christopher Luxen and world leaders from across the EU,
Canada and Australia. Kairs Darmer said the group was growing

(05:18):
and gathering political and military momentum. He also called for
maximum pressure to be placed on Russia. We get to
hear from Christopher Luxen, who was on a plane to
India straight after the meeting, but he posted his support
in social media, saying New Zealand stands shoulder to shoulder
with Ukraine to talk through what is required by this
coalition in a peacekeeping role. I am joined by TEENB Palell.

(05:41):
tenB is the chairman of humanitarian organization Keywi Care. He
was also Deputy chief of a UN peacekeeping mission in
South Lebanon in two thousand and one and two thousand
and two, and TEENB Pale joins me. Now, good to
have you with us.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
tenB, good morning, Francesca.

Speaker 4 (05:57):
Now this ongoing dialogue between countries, is it significant and
important that these talks and calls are going on alongside
the CEASEFI negotiation.

Speaker 6 (06:07):
That's incredibly important. The reality is that the situation surrounding
Ukraine's borders as a staric example of geopolitical injustice. And
I'm very hardened to hear that Prime Minist de Luxem
is standing firm in New Zealand's support for Ukraine.

Speaker 4 (06:22):
tenB. What kind of commitment does Ukraine need from these countries?

Speaker 6 (06:27):
Well, look, it needs a lot on the one hand,
but I think it's very important to understand that the
United States is consistently parroting Kremlin propaganda. Arguing for peace
at any cost to Ukraine, as they tell the world
because Ukraine is losing, is simply not true. And I
think it's important that we understand what this means for Ukraine.

(06:50):
The thought of losing a very large part of the
don Bass area that Russia currently occupies.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Would be inconceivable.

Speaker 6 (06:57):
And I Francesca always encourage those that say peace at
all costs for Ukraine to consider how you would feel.
How would we feel about losing the lower half of
the South Island, losing Canterbury, Otago and Southland? It would
be inconceivable.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
For New Zealanders, Kirs Starmer has asked for pressure to
be put on Russia. How does this play out? I mean,
what kind of position or Russian in Russia in here?

Speaker 6 (07:22):
Well, I've looked. I think they're in a precarious position.
In fact, the UK Defense Intelligence Agency suggests that Russia
is now at a culminating point, having used some ninety
five percent of its warfighting personnel on assets. And the
belief is that by May twenty five it'll be estimated

(07:42):
that Russian casualties will reach one million people. Can you
imagine that this is a staggering figure.

Speaker 4 (07:49):
Okay, back to the peacekeeping role. What is a peacekeeping
role going to require?

Speaker 6 (07:56):
Well, people must understand peacekeeping operations as you know, A
very light touch compared to warfighting. The reality is that
train soldier war fighters are only those that can conduct
peacekeeping operations, and the operations of this nature are very
intensive for the contributing countries. They require significant resources, training

(08:19):
and logistical support, and specifically they require an ongoing level
of training at home that requires consistency of effort and
a very high quality of training delivery, which means that
some of our best become trainers. The re equipping of
troops is expensive and we can expect in Ukraine the

(08:40):
operational environment to be very dynamic and come with complex mandates.

Speaker 4 (08:45):
So who's in the best position to provide this well.

Speaker 6 (08:49):
That needs to be a coalition lead entity from Europe
in some way, and you know, it's very interesting post
bricks for the United Kingdom to be leading this in
such a way. I'm thrilled that they are. I think
they bring an awful lot to the party, experience, knowledge
and a great levelhead. I'm very impressed with what Kaiostam
is doing in respect of this, you know, with the

(09:11):
conversations ditto Machron from France and other countries. But it
needs to be an EU lent entity in my view.

Speaker 4 (09:20):
So what realistically, can New Zealand provide in a peacekeeping capacity?
Does it come down to as you mentioned, they're the training.

Speaker 6 (09:28):
Well, it comes down to training, It comes down to
assets and material, and it comes down to rotation of
you know, of the entities that go in and I
don't know what's being discussed, but we are talking about
a twelve hundred kilometer zero line, so a front line
that would need to be in some way police operating

(09:48):
in a very harsh and dangerous environment amongst cities, towns
and villages that are mostly destroyed in the areas that
I'm thinking of right now. And you know, it comes
with the inherent risk of Russia breaching various agreements that
could be made around you know, peace accords, and they've
got a huge history of doing exactly that.

Speaker 4 (10:11):
So just falling on from what you said there, you know,
it is important to keep in mind what is awaiting
any deployment and you'll be well across this from your work,
what kind of environment are they going to be arriving
to and working in.

Speaker 6 (10:24):
Well, the environment is I mean it's climatically very harsh.
It's either very whole or miserably cold. So that's the
first thing. So, I mean, New Zealand is very adaptable.
We have an incredible our service men and women in
the Navy, the Army and the Air Force are some
of the best in the world. But as I said,
this is an intensive operation and it's going to need

(10:45):
multiple rotations to make a meaningful contribution. And you know,
the question that I would ask, and it's a question
that the media should be asking the Ministry of Defense,
is do we have the numbers to be able to
make a sustained effort So we're making an impactful and
meaningful contribution to peace support operations.

Speaker 4 (11:02):
Yeah, as you say, it's going to be very intensive,
but it's also going to be a long road because
there's the peacekeeping, but then there's also the rebuilding. What's
required there? How long could that take and what's going
to be needed to get that done?

Speaker 6 (11:16):
Yeah, well, look, rebuilding something completely different again, and there's
a huge opportunity for New Zealand as a consequence of
having made a significant contribution, to be a part of
rebuilding activities in the future, But that very much still
is in the future. There would need to be a
sustained and just piece for that to happen, and the
rebuilding is we're talking trillions and trillions of dollars to

(11:37):
rebuild the parts of the dom Bass that we operate in,
and we are obviously behind the Ukrainians in the humanitarian
work that we do, but you know, the reports of
mass destruction in and around the dom Bass of the
Russian occupied area, I think it very real and so
rebuilding would be a phenomenal global task that would need

(11:58):
massive cooperation in the future. But that is separate to
peace support operations.

Speaker 4 (12:02):
Yeah, yeah, Look ten be the work you and your
charity Key we Care have done over the last two
and a bit years in this humanitarian role. How important
is that for what comes next for any peace keeping
work in rebuildings.

Speaker 6 (12:14):
Well, we've always said that it would be great to
be able to conduct the operations that we do in
terms of humanitarian work without being fired out, without having
the risk that that comes with it. Under this in
the current environment, so if there was a cease fire,
we'd be able to do a lot more, a lot quicker.
And there is as part of peace support operations, there

(12:37):
is the winning of hearts and minds, and that that's
an absolute fact. Whether it came down to countries you know,
permitting their soldiers in situe to carry humanitarian aid remains
to be seen and everybody would have a different view
on that. But if New Zealand was open to those discussions,
it would make a material difference to the effort that Kei,
we Care and others could make in terms of delivering

(13:01):
both medical aid and humanitarian aid forward.

Speaker 4 (13:04):
And you kind of touched on it there. The importance
of the relationationships that are built in order to get
things done. That's important, isn't it.

Speaker 6 (13:11):
It's critical, absolutely critical, And why there would be as
there would always be the case with a significant language barrier,
there would be Ukrainian liaison offices appointed to various units
and sub units, whatever that strength is, whatever that composition is.
But at the end of the day, you know, New
Zealanders excel at this. You know, we have a long

(13:32):
history of very successful winning of hearts and minds and
some very hostile environments and I would see that continuing
in Ukraine absolutely so.

Speaker 4 (13:43):
Ten be looking at the way negotiations and talks are going.
How confident are you that we could see a ceasefire soon?

Speaker 6 (13:50):
I'm not confident at all. You know, Again I repeat
that Russia has breached cease fire agreements and they've made it.
They've delivered now a set of terms that are really
impossible for Ukraine or Europe to agree to. And it's
very important to remember that Ukraine is the only dam
between Russia and certainly Eastern Europe and quite possibly Western

(14:14):
Europe holding back imperialistic expansionist aspirations by person. And so
you know, to have a set of terms laid down
around oh, you know, not training during this period of time,
no arms coming into Ukraine to augment them, while everybody
knows that Russia will be doing exactly that, they will
be recomposing themselves to step off again in the future.

Speaker 4 (14:37):
Timb Pal, thank you so much for your time this morning.
Really appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (14:42):
This Sunday session.

Speaker 4 (14:45):
You're most welcome to text your thoughts through on what
Tembi was saying there as well. In ninety two ninety two,
it's twenty four past nine and the default can we
say the contribution rate could be on the rise. Finance
Minister Nikola Willis is currently seeking advice on what can
we say the needs to look like in the future,
which could include increase in the default setting from three

(15:07):
percent with our aging population. Willis says as she wants
to see balances rise so key Wes are more financially
secure and retirement to discuss the future of can we
save our simplicity? CEO Sam Stubbs is with me. Thanks
for your time this morning, Sam Curata, Okay, are you
encouraged that the Finance Minister is seeking advice and looking

(15:29):
into the future of key we saver? It is long
over due, yes.

Speaker 7 (15:33):
Yeah, yeah, Look, I'm very encouraged, particularly from a national
lead government. You know, keep Saver was a labor government
invention and what you've seen over the years is the
sort of labor led governments tenderly things alone and national
lead governments have tended to chip away to the bit.
So I think this is a really important turn in
terms of direction, and I think it's a recognition of

(15:54):
the fact that we just have to save more for
our retirement because unless we do national superannuation in the
cost of health particularly well, we'll eat up our current
tax space. You know, if you look at the current
tax collection from all income taxes, while by twenty fifty,
unless we do something about it, it will be entirely
spent on national super and health. You know that we're

(16:15):
nothing there for schools, hospitals, prisons, anything like that. So yeah,
we will need to do something about it. This is
a very encouraging signal.

Speaker 4 (16:24):
It's a really positive outlock you've given us there, Sam.

Speaker 8 (16:28):
Yeah, I know, I know.

Speaker 7 (16:29):
Well it could be really good. I mean, I mean,
look here, here's the good side of all of that.
So if you look at what key we Saber managers
put into New Zealand hour, it's about thirty percent of
their investments. It's nothing changed in can We Saber. By
twenty fifty, Key We Save will be about a trillion
dollars and kee We Serb managers would have invested another

(16:50):
two hundred and forty or one hundred and fifty billion
dollars in New Zealand. That's if nothing else change, right
and as that almost plugs our infrastructure gap. But if
contributions start rising and we start getting closer to countries
like Australia, that amount could go up significantly. So I
am actually extremely optim I do think we're entering the
next thirty years I think will possibly be the most

(17:12):
prosperous in our history. And it's because for the first
time ever, we are saving our way to prosperity. VI
key we say, the key we save is probably the
most important piece of legislation we've had in this country
for decades, and because we will be investing that money,
and I think a lot of it has to go
into infrastructure and housing because nothing else really moves the needle,
you know, everything else is arounding ere from an investment

(17:32):
point of view. Only housing and infrastructure can soak up
that amount of money. If we're going to be doing that,
then we will actually start to be building you know,
the roads and the hospitals and the schools that we
need with our own money. We won't have to bring
it in from overseas and we won't have to borrow it.
It's a very very you know, optimistic future. But the
more we save, the more we'll have to invest in,
the better off will be.

Speaker 4 (17:51):
So Sam the current default, right, the key we save
us three percent? Should that be increased?

Speaker 7 (17:56):
Yeah, look it should be. If you if you have
a look at what the average key we saber saves
at three percent from the employer and three percent themselves,
so it's called that six percent in total. If you
look at a country like Australia, which has a very
successful policy there that's already twelve percent, and most of
the OECD countries now have got higher than six percent
contribution rates. We're sort of going to have to do
that because we're going to be living longer and healthcare

(18:20):
is only going to get more expensive, and we all
want to be living in a nice home. And you
know what you've started to see now in New Zealand
is more and more people needing their own homes. You
have widows and widowers living by themselves for longer and
so on. So we need more housing, more hospitals, and
more money because we live longer. So we're going to
have to get those contribution rates up for sure. Now,
the way to do that is slowly. You know, you

(18:41):
don't do it dramatically because it's money out of people's pockets.
So if you have a look at what a successful
countries have done to increase it by about a half
a percent a year, that allows it to get built
into wage negotiations, everybody gets ready for it. I do
think it has to be bipartisan. You know, if national
brought something in here as a policy, it would be
nice to see labor endorsing it, or if they were

(19:02):
to change it, only change it very at the margin.
There's a well trucked trodden path here globally as to
how you do this, we don't have to do anything new.
We just have to do what's worked elsewhere.

Speaker 4 (19:13):
S Would you like to see it made compulsory.

Speaker 7 (19:16):
I absolutely would, because the only problem with kiwisaver. I mean,
it's an absolutely wonderful scheme. The only thing I don't
like about it is that if you don't contribute effectively,
what it's doing is it's making those who contribute welfare
and those who don't pourer so key we save a
risks discriminating against the poor. If it's left as a
voluntary system, the people who most need it, that the

(19:38):
people who most don't want it, you know, or don't
want to save. So you really have to actually force
them to do this so that they have a pool
of money and with that money comes choices and dignity
in life. At you think it should probably should be
actually compulsory from birth, and I think the government should
be providing some sort of subsidy from day one there.
But it's but else we're in the world, it is

(20:00):
pretty much compulsory in MOSTCD countries now it's all most
that now in the sense that you know, you get
put into it and you have to consciously opt out
of it. But if those people who are opting out
of it, particularly those the poorer people who will most
suffer later in life for not having a pull of savings.

Speaker 4 (20:18):
I can remember my Australian family are winging in nineteen
ninety two when it became compulsory in Australia, and now
they're all just sitting back and laughing. What about tax
would you change how we tax? Can we savor?

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Look?

Speaker 7 (20:31):
I think how can we save? Is tax is really taxed?
Is really a subset of how we tax out our
citizens generally.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
So while in.

Speaker 7 (20:38):
An ideal world, I'd like to see the contributions and
the accumulation be tax free, that gets taxed, you know
when you take it out, I think that's been very
successful elsewhere. I don't have any expectations that governments will
change that because that would involve a border change of
the tax system. It doesn't matter in the sense that
as long as the contribution rates are righting, as long

(20:59):
as it's compulsory, then you'll end up having you know,
a wonderful system. Going back to your Ossie point of
view too, Like here's a really interesting st Australia has
five times our population, right, but they have thirty five
times our retirement savings. That's why when you go to Sydney,
Melbourne and Brisbane and Perth, you know, the roads are
wider and the buildings are taller and the infrastructure just
so much better. Right, So if you save, you can

(21:21):
invest in. The Australians have about half of their four
trillion dollars that they have saved invested in their local
economy and it's funded an awful lot of the infrastructure
and AUSI and that's exactly what could happen here now.
But we do have to have I think rising contributions,
not only at the personal level because you know you're
saving more, but also from an investment level too. If

(21:43):
people keep on saving more, then we can make much
longer term investments. KII SAB funds could end up owning
you know, the ports, the toll roads, the electricity distribution systems,
and it would be us investing in the hood. It
would be you know, QW assets owned by kiwi's four kiwi's.
That would be very cool.

Speaker 4 (21:59):
Sam Stubbs is always really appreciate your time. Thank you
so much. It is twenty eight to ten newstalks, he'd be.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks
at B.

Speaker 4 (22:14):
Thank you very much for your text this morning. You're
most welcome to text anytime. On ninety two ninety two,
I was talking about the pretty full on march that
the Prime Minister and the coalition is having a lot
on the line at the moment. Text here, steady as
she goes. The government is making good progress despite coming
in with the cupboard bear. This will take time, not
a quick fixed. Labor hopeless with the real economy. Another

(22:37):
one here, labor doesn't get my vote. They damaged our country.
National is on the right track and they need two
terms to undo the damage labor inflicted on New Zealand
over six years. And another one here said their role
lucks in at a heartbeat if any of their other
MPs were even vaguely competent. Let's talk local politics now
I'm joining my news talk the B Political editor Jason Walls,

(22:57):
Good morning, good morning, how are you very good? Thank you?
As I mentioned, a very big week for the government.
This week, the Prime Minister is on his way to
India and what he is hoping to do is to
return with at least a time frame in line to
work towards a free trade agreement. What do you think
your chances are, Jason.

Speaker 9 (23:17):
Well, I think something He's left the door open so wide,
something so vague that I think it's almost impossible that
he'll come back without something like that. He hasn't agreed
to and promise getting a free trade agreement during this trip,
which would have been next to impossible. I mean, India
has been such a hard not to crack for so long.
Their protectionism around their dairy is so hard, especially with

(23:39):
somewhere like New Zealand where we put a lot of
our stock in the exporting of our dairy. So him
saying he's going to come home with a time frame
to maybe talk about how we can start to think
about getting some sort of free trade agreement off the line,
it's basically a nothing burger, because of course that's what
they're already doing. There's probably already a time frame. But
that's not to say that it's a bad thing. I mean,

(24:00):
you need to be able to go to these countries
and try. India is massive, It's got a huge economy.
So it's the right decision from the Prime Minister to
go over there, and probably the right decision not to
promise getting a free trade agreement across the line this time,
because it's simply not going to happen. These things do
take time, and it's the right thing to do to
be able to try. The right thing to do is

(24:21):
to try and get one across the line, given how
I said, the economy is so massive.

Speaker 4 (24:25):
Winston Peters is also in Washington, DC and New York
this week for meetings. Also pretty important when it comes
to trade and export.

Speaker 9 (24:35):
Well, from one protectionist economy to the other, I mean
India to the US. We're looking to get some exemptions
to some agricultural tariffs over there, as well as some
steel and aluminium tariffs as well. Now, the likes of
Australia haven't had much luck with that, and other countries
around the world haven't had much luck either, So it's
hard to think about New Zealand and thinking, well, why

(24:55):
are we going to get an exemption when the others don't.
But from the conversations I've been having with some pretty
people that are in the know about trade agreements and
tariffs and whatnot. The trumpetman frustration really likes it when
we have a trade balance, that is, we they trade
as about as much as they import with a country,
and New Zealand is actually quite balanced when it comes

(25:16):
to its trade with the US. So maybe an exemption
for New Zealand isn't actually off the off the table
because it's not, from Trump's perspective, altogether unfair that trading relationship.
But still it's going to be a really really hard ask,
and Winston Peter's a foreign minister, is meeting with the
likes of Marco Rubio and other top politicians and lawmakers

(25:37):
over in the US to really try and works on
the count.

Speaker 4 (25:40):
If we are not exempt, when could we expect tariff
to kick off?

Speaker 9 (25:45):
Well, it's I mean, that's the question is because we
just don't know, because everything that Trump does seems to
be in a tweet or in some sort of off
the cuff comment with absolutely no detail. So the last
time I talked to the Prime Minister about this, I mean, yeah,
he was obviously a little bit worried, but said, listen,
we just don't have any details on anything yet. So
I just can't give a straight answer.

Speaker 4 (26:05):
Thank you so much, Jason. I know you'll be keeping
a close eye on this throughout the week. Don't forget
Ossie Acting Royalty. Jeffrey Rush joins me after ten this morning.
It is twenty one to ten Newstalks at B.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
The Sunday Session Full show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by
Newstalks FB.

Speaker 4 (26:25):
Some interesting texts regarding the key We Saver. A one
here reads, next time the economy is overheated, increase key
We Saver contributions rather than increasing the ocr and another
good morning, national government intend to reduce the employer contribution.
That is why they intend to increase the employee contribution.
So a couple of different thoughts there right now. Early
trials have showne medical detection dogs picking up a varying

(26:47):
cancer with incredible accuracy. Two dogs, two very clever and
very cute dogs, Hogan and Hunter, have been trained to
detect the cancer in the early stages of the disease.
So far in trials, the pair have a ninety six
and one hundred percent accuracy rate. The dogs are trained
by company Henine MD, CEO and founder Pauline Blomfield is

(27:10):
with me now Good morning, Pauline.

Speaker 10 (27:12):
Good morning.

Speaker 4 (27:12):
Do I dare ask who's the ninety six and who's
the hundred?

Speaker 10 (27:19):
Hogan with the ninety six, sorry, Hunter with the ninety
six and Hogan with the one hundred. Yeah, I mean
I've just knocked it out of the park.

Speaker 4 (27:27):
Haven't They Talk me through the early trials and the
success you have found with detecting this Iberian cancer.

Speaker 11 (27:33):
Sure.

Speaker 10 (27:34):
Well, to start with, we do work with specialists that
are actually working with ovarian cancer themselves, and what we
do is that we identify those cancer cell lines and
then we grow them in our laboratory and it's this
that we imprint the dogs on the odor that's actually
released from the cancer. So, just to be clear, the
dogs aren't detecting cancer, they are detecting the odor, the

(27:56):
specific odor that's released from those cancer cells. So yeah,
it's proved really really successful without those early stage validations.
I mean, you can't ask for that more, can you?
When it's around about one hundred percent. But these validations
that we do, they are under the supervision of biostatistician
and she sets our study design and then analyzes the

(28:17):
results so people can have confidence that it has been
done scientifically, Is.

Speaker 4 (28:22):
This quite significant given that ivarian cancer can be hard
to diagnose early?

Speaker 10 (28:28):
Oh, it's huge, absolutely huge. I mean, we know that
ovarian cancer is hard to detect because it mimics other
common conditions and diagnosis is normally late. I mean eighty
five per cent of people diagnosed with ovarian cancer are
diagnosed in the late stages when treatments limited. One person

(28:48):
dies every forty eight hours. So if we can have
that early, noninvasive diagnosed test, it's going to be massive.

Speaker 4 (28:56):
What other cancers have the dogs had success detecting.

Speaker 10 (29:00):
We've got other dogs that we have for bowel cancer
and their connective success rate ranges from ninety eight to
one hundred percent success for bowel cancer, and we've also
got prostate cancer dogs. Again collectively that's between nineteen one
hundred percent success.

Speaker 4 (29:17):
Amazing. So what is the potential for this method of
detecting cancer?

Speaker 10 (29:22):
Excuse me? I think it's enormous because it's a non invasive.
You know, we can reach people of any age, any ethnicity,
and we have to remember that cancer doesn't discriminate. And
the numbers tell a sobering story. I mean, New Zealand
has one of the highest rates of cancer in the world.

Speaker 4 (29:40):
Is it more efficient than other forms of testing?

Speaker 10 (29:44):
Well, if we look at our current bowel screening program
where we're looking for blood in the stall, that sensitivity
is eighty percent and that misses twenty percent of bowel cancers.
The colonoscopy, it's their most accurate screening test we've got.
But it's resource intensive and it's invasive. And then of
course we've got to look at those cultural specs and

(30:07):
younger ages. I mean, that's been in the news lately,
hasn't it. So giving a urine sample has not been
met with any form of resistance.

Speaker 4 (30:16):
So you're using just two dogs at the moment for
the ovarian cancer.

Speaker 10 (30:20):
How well, lots of the press, stop the press. We
now have three. Where you have a labrador called Sky.
She has become our third ovarian cancer detection dog and
she actually her birthday was yesterday, twelve months old. And
again phenomenal recognition to over cancer ovarian cancer.

Speaker 4 (30:43):
That is very exciting. I thought she would her name
would begin with an H though, So how many how
many samples can they get through?

Speaker 10 (30:51):
Well, each dog can detect three hundred samples each week,
so one trainer work can work three dogs and they
need a laboratory technician working alongside of them. So the
enormous is huge. We do have the ability to scale
it as well, and so how.

Speaker 4 (31:10):
Long does it take to train a dog to get
to the point where they're getting one hundred percent accuracy rate?

Speaker 10 (31:17):
So we start when they're eight weeks old. When we
first get them, we teach them our games because to
the dogs, all it is again we teach them to
go out and find this odor and they get rewarded
for it. So at the end of the day, the
sad reality is that it comes back to funding. So
we need funding for our trainers, for our nurses, for

(31:40):
our laboratory technicians. So that depends on the number of
trainers that we can have and we're very very fortunate
of course, as you will be aware that we've just
received support from the global company Royal Canon. Now they're
out of Australia and the Royal Canon Foundation is out
of France. Now two global companies have come back and

(32:03):
supported us and said this has huge potential. So for
us to be able to scale it out, we're going,
come on New Zealand, let's back this.

Speaker 4 (32:13):
Oh look, thank you so much for your time this morning.
Pauline really appreciate it. Is that incredible what these dogs
can do. It is thirteen to ten News Talk ZB
digging into.

Speaker 3 (32:24):
The issues that affect you. The mic asking Breakfast.

Speaker 12 (32:28):
Does your company look to specific projects or types of
projects or any projects potential?

Speaker 2 (32:33):
They ever being concession and pretty has about eight million
and z globally under management.

Speaker 12 (32:41):
If fix all that with reputation, a reputation of a
rock star, of a success story, of a go getter.
Back tomorrow at six am the Mic asking Breakfast with
the Rain Driver The Lamb News Talk ZEDB.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
There's no better way to start your Sunday.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rutgan and Wiggles for
the best selection of Greg Reeds us Talk ZEDB.

Speaker 4 (33:11):
This morning on the Sunday Seession, we had lined up
form of Facebook director of Global Policy New Zealander Sarah
win Williams to talk about her new book. It's called
Careless People. It is a first person narrative account of
what she witnessed during seven years as an employee at
Meta formerly Facebook. You may have read about this book
in the news over the last few days. We were
really disappointed that the interview was canceled at the last

(33:34):
minute due to legal action by Meta, preventing Sarah from
doing any publicity for the book.

Speaker 13 (33:41):
Now.

Speaker 4 (33:41):
To be honest, I'm not hugely surprised by Meta's actions
because I've got a copy of the book, and the
reviewers are right. It is full of some pretty shocking allegations.
Sarah alleges that the company had been using algorithms to
target and categorize vulnerable teens and sell ads directly to them.
She alleges Facebook gave away proprietary information to the Chinese

(34:02):
government on how Facebook worked and built them a version
with censorship tool and the ability to access citizens data.
She alleges Facebook employees were embedded with the Trump campaign
in twenty sixteen and helped it micro target potential voters,
feeding them bestoke ads filled with misinformation and inflammatory posts
and on it goes, and there's a lot of quite

(34:24):
juicy sort of information in there as well. Sarah claims
that she wrote the book to show some of the
decision making and moral compromises that went on when she
was there. She feels that this is a really critical
moment because the people who are behind social media are
now also behind Ai and she wants you to sort
of see a different side to the story. We are

(34:45):
hoping that at some point we will get the opportunity
to to her. In the meantime, you can pre order
the book here in New Zealand. It is still available,
so you can make up your own mind about these allegations.
I think we're going to be hearing a lot more
about the story and it's going to be really interesting
to see how this one plays.

Speaker 3 (35:02):
Out the Sunday session.

Speaker 4 (35:06):
So much for the text. Hugely impressed with your interview
with timb Powell. What a great New Zealander getting it
done an incredibly challenging environment. Having deployed on police keeping
missions myself, everything he says is absolutely correct. Thanks for
the text. Dave another here, thank you Tenby for the
work you and your Care we Care team do. That's
from a Ukraine supporter since twenty twenty two. It's not

(35:28):
our circus. We should not send our troops there to
be killed, and we have no money to pay for it.
Is another response there as well, Thank you very much
for the text. You can keep them coming throughout the show.
On ninety two ninety two, very quickly, the Little Things
released a new podcast for you yesterday. At this time
of the era, it can be quite a big change

(35:50):
happening in a lot of families. You may be losing
a teenager from home for the first time, or maybe
you're up to the second or third one. They might
be heading out to university, leaving town to go to university,
or maybe going on in oe or anything, and it
could be quite a big job for the kids, but
also for parents it can be equally difficult. So my

(36:10):
co hosts and I Luise, we open up about our
own experiences of losing a child at we Gonna Get
get we don't really lose them that we're back in
three weeks for the first holidays, but to get some
advice on how to cope. We were joined by news
talk Z'DB host Carrie Woodham, who had her own experience
with her daughter Kate, and she shares how she coped

(36:30):
leaving home and what she missed and didn't miss and
how their relationship grew into something new. It's a really
beautiful conversation. So if you've got a moment, have a
listen to The Little Things. You can get it on
iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
It's six to ten the Sunday Session Full show podcast
on iHeartRadio powered by News Talks.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
I'd be.

Speaker 4 (36:53):
Jeffrey Rush started out life on the theater stage and
then a little film called Shine came along and since
then he's been a familiar sight on the big screen,
starring in a multitude of award winning and blockbuster films
such as Elizabeth and Shake, Weir in Love and Pirates
of the Caribbean and The King Speech. He teams up
with John Lithgow in a new KIWI film called The
Rule of Jenny Pen. He is with me after the

(37:16):
News to talk about New Zealand cinema and how he
came to be part of it. Jeffrey Rush is up next.
We're going to finish the hour with the latest song
from Chapel Rowan. This is the Giver She has gone
country ever.

Speaker 5 (37:29):
Listen to this, John, It's the Simle.

Speaker 3 (38:23):
Just take it, Take baby.

Speaker 14 (38:29):
Me, lady.

Speaker 15 (38:34):
No comfortable.

Speaker 16 (38:54):
Back, John, Yes, man.

Speaker 17 (38:58):
It's a You're welcome.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
It's Sunday. You know what that means.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
It's the Sunday Session with French, Jessica Ruskin and Wiggles
for the best selection of great reeds use talk Zippy.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
Good morning, this is.

Speaker 4 (39:19):
A Sunday session. I'm Francisco brud Can with you until midday.
Good to have you with us. Jeffrey Rush is an
Australian acting legend in a career that spans over fifty years.
He's played many roles across film, TV and stage, but
it was nineteen ninety six film Shine that launched his
Hollywood career and won him almost every award on offer.
While known for his ascentra of characters, his latest is

(39:41):
no Exception. He appears alongside fellow legend John Lithgow in
Key We Horror The Rule of Jenny Penn.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
My whole life, loving soul bored, but time, it seems,
has awarded me.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
Certain advantages. Be a waste to honor that, don't you think?

Speaker 4 (40:08):
The film is directed by Keewei James Ashcroft. And you
may have remembered last week or the week before, Steve
Jill brought us the news that James Ashcroft has been
announced to direct a new Netflix crime drama and he
has got Robert de Nirodista in it. So James Ashcroft
is very much a Kiwi director to watch anyway. I
am delighted to be joined now by Jeffrey Rush.

Speaker 15 (40:30):
Good morning, Jeffrey, Good morning Francesca.

Speaker 4 (40:34):
This film is directed by Keewei James Ashcroft. How did
you get involved?

Speaker 2 (40:41):
Look?

Speaker 15 (40:42):
You know it was there was a downtime for everybody
on the planet with a thing called COVID. It hit
us pretty hard in Melbourne, with a lot of lockdowns
and stuff, and so I didn't travel for a very
long time. And about twenty twenty two, about the middle

(41:04):
of the year, so we were in and around, going
into lockdown or whatever, and this out of the blue
invitation came from James offering me this extraordinary script, which
I read and was completely bowled over because I you know,
in twenty twenty one, I turned seventy. You know my

(41:27):
background in theater. You know, I'd been playing seventy three
year olds when I was twenty three. I was quite
adept with la like and makeup, grease, paint, do you
know what I mean, crape hair, spirit, gum, the works.
And then I thought, I don't have to do that anymore.
I just have to turn up. And the good thing

(41:50):
about it was that, well, the curious thing about it
was my agent had said, I think he's an Iraqi
war hero. I went, oh, and when I read the script, it,
you know, it's it's got a lot of dark. It's
about bullying, really, you know. And I'd asked James about that.

(42:13):
I said, why did you write this? He said, I've
got three daughters and they're all less than twelve. And
I'm just always been intrigued by the genre of thriller
or mystery or horror, but I'm more concerned with consequences
of bullying because it occurs everywhere in institutions, within families,

(42:34):
within countries. And I thought, oh my god, you know.
And by the end of a we must have talked
for an hour and a half and we got on
extremely well because I said, well, you know, all I
can say about your screenplay is how impeccably written it is,
and the structure of it, how it unfils for an

(42:55):
audience to enter into a very slightly perverse world of
putting a psychopath into the middle of an aged care facility.
That it just read brilliantly and it stylistically. The tone
of it really appealed to me because I said, it's
like whatever happened to Baby Jane meets you know, the

(43:20):
one full over the cooker's nest. He said, that's great.
He said, they two a my favorite films. So we
got to talk about all of that, and at the
end of the interview, I said, so, you know, were
you did? You have a kind of post traumatic stress
disorder at the end of your Iraqi service. He said,
but what do you mean. I said, well, my agent

(43:44):
told me that you were a war hero, and I'd
seen his photo online. James is a very dapper guy.
He dresses very smartly. He had he had a mustache
at the time that was bigger than Kenneth Browno's mustache
when he played Hercule Borro and it was waxed. And

(44:05):
I thought, this guy is military grandeur and heroism to
the extreme, and he's written this dark humor screenplay. And
he went, oh, no, no, no, no, I know what
you mean. There's another James Ashcroft that comes up on
the Wikipedia page ahead of me. That won't be the

(44:27):
case of a future I didn't think. And I said, oh,
my age must have said to his assistant, find out
something great about James Ashcroft, so I can tell you
every to talk about it. Anyway, We sorted that out
and he was Luck. He was not only flattering but
very engaged. He said, I've followed your career because he'd

(44:51):
also appeared in the stage production of Quills. I think
in Auckland it might have been Wellington. I'm not sure.
Back at the time that the film I was in
came out and he said, I was just you were
my person. You know, I wanted to be I want
to have a career like you. And Eli Kent, who

(45:12):
he co wrote the screenplay with, they had, you know,
they'd started tinkering with the idea. Oh I think maybe
back in the early teens of this century, and they
always had me in mind. And John Liskow because you know,
John has done a lot of films in this kind

(45:32):
of genre and things like Dexter on TV and worked
with Brian de Palmer and everything, to the point where
James Ashcroft knew more could remember more about John's performances
than he could. That's the drawback of when you have
only septagenarians, the only septagenarians on the set.

Speaker 4 (45:53):
But the wonderful thing about this film is it is
sitting an age care facility and the majority of the
cast is older. Isn't it great that we can have
a film that hangs on older actors.

Speaker 15 (46:05):
Totally. I mean, it's you know, it's not grumpy old men.
I tried to think what was what were the historical competition?
And I said to James in that very first interview,
I said, how are you going to cast this? Because
they're lack of Greek chorus and it's sensitive material, you know,

(46:27):
because you're going to have people performing a number of disabilities,
age conditions, and that has to be done with such
a sensitivity and authenticity to it. He said, well, I'm
going to invite all of my mentors that I've worked
with since he was in the theater in his late

(46:50):
teens early twenties, and that's who they were. You know,
I met them all, and I knew the Australian equivalents
of my mentors of people who were in their sixty
and seventies when I was in my twenties and thirties,
do you know what I mean? And it was like

(47:11):
working with their equivalent parallels. So there was you know,
there was Jeanette McDonald, I couldn't believe she was Clljinette
McDonald and Hilary and there were just so many Bruce
Ian Mooney He was amazing, you know, Irene, they look

(47:34):
they were just because you know, they were from a
generation that they loved to hang out in the bar
at the end of the day shooting and we'd all
go out there and just talk Turkey. Was fantastic.

Speaker 4 (47:46):
How was it shooting in New Zealand. I don't know
if Australia is the same. Here in New Zealand we
sort of have two film industries. We have the international
productions that come in with quite large resources, and then
we have the New Zealand film industry which scrapes by
on incredible talent. You know, it's quite different. Yeah, what

(48:07):
was it like coming to work with our crews? I
believe that it was quite an I've.

Speaker 15 (48:12):
Been in New Zealand, I think either at the end
of two thousand and seven or two thousand and eight.
In Auckland, I did a film that was then called
Laundry Warrior, and I love that title because it was
a Korean Western Summi Lee who had written it, and
the main character was a six month old baby. It

(48:37):
was just fantastic and I had a very handsome young
man who was playing the heroic warrior. It came out
as the Warrior's Way. But sadly, after the two thousand
and eight financial crash, ninety nine percent of our film
was cgied. We were totally in a Green Spring studio

(48:57):
and it took a while for them to get the
finance together to complete the film. So sadly it didn't
really hit a big audience. But I had an extraordinary
time making it. I could tell that the buzz was good.

Speaker 8 (49:14):
You know, I knew things.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
I go back to.

Speaker 15 (49:18):
Seminal films like Vincent Ward. You know, when I saw
The Navigator, I just thought, what New Zealand, how.

Speaker 14 (49:25):
Are they doing this?

Speaker 15 (49:26):
This is like a master work, you know, highly unique,
very original, right through to the Hunt of the Wilder People.
And you know, I've never seen Goodbye pork Pie, but
I throw that title around as I'm very familiar with,
you know, but there is I mean, you look at it.

(49:48):
It reminds me a little bit of you know, when
in the independent scene in Australia kind of had two
periods of revitalization in the seventies and then again in
the nineties, and that was happening in such a unique
way in New Zealand. And then there are major breaking
name is like you know, Vincent Ward and the Concord Boys,

(50:13):
and you know, I knew John Clark quite well living
in Australia, so I felt in touch with all of that.
But to meet, you know, when the septuagenarians, octogenarians and
nonagenarians that came onto this film, I sort of tapped

(50:33):
into a whole other history there of the kind of
work they'd been doing. And I could tell you know,
I mean, I've spent my career on a few blockbusters,
but generally on the smell of oily rag kind of filmmaking,
and that does require being a resilience and smart use

(50:57):
of financing. And James Ashcroft is you know, he's a
natural born director in that he can harm without being authoritarian.
That kind of energy from a very raucous in your
group of people, Jeffrey, you have.

Speaker 4 (51:19):
Had an extraordinary career. I wonder if you look at
the industry though as a whole, how much has it
changed over the decades.

Speaker 15 (51:28):
Oh, it's huge, you know. I mean the fact that
I go back to theater and I can use the
words crape hair and I like a grease paint and
spirit gum, and I've traveled with that through to very
fine three D silicon printed applications for when I played Einstein,

(51:52):
you know, eight years ago whenever it was, and you
know when I did, I did a very controversial film
in All the Gods of Egypt, and in that I
had to fight up Popus, who was the demon of
the night that would come and try and stop my

(52:13):
son God's boat from going around the planet. And it
was entirely a green screen, blue screen studio. And to
me that was just like some people had real problems
with it because you have to perform really to a
tennis ball on the end of a stick or a

(52:34):
mark on the wall. And I went, no, no, I'm
just playing now to our row at the back of
the stalls or the top end of the gallery, but
a little bit more subtly.

Speaker 4 (52:50):
Oh, Jeffrey, thank you so much for your time today,
and thank you for the wonderful performance and making me
think a little bit differently, more differently about aged care facilities.

Speaker 12 (52:59):
And what potentially goes on there.

Speaker 15 (53:02):
It's going to be interesting. We took it to festival
in Austin, Texas, the Fantastic Festival there and the Fantastic
Festival in Sitches outside of Barcelona, and The great thing
was we learned a lot from that because the hipsters
and the film buffs just absolutely eight it alive. I thought, oh,

(53:25):
they'll all be geeks and they'll just go, yeah, yeah,
I'm going to go and see Killer Clowns from Mars
and then I might go and see the Rule of
Jenny Pit or whatever. But they kind of louded us,
and we were really lucky that in this age of
Instagram communications, Stephen King put out a message going, this

(53:45):
is the best film I've seen this year, So we do.
I don't think they need an entert I don't think
they need a promotion budget anymore. Because his word was
like gospel, you know what I mean. It gave it
a good leg up. But I'm so pleased for James
because Coming Home in the Dark was one of those
films you know, if you get your first film, your

(54:05):
debut feature gets accepted into Kahn in competition, but unfortunately
thwarted by COVID. But it's still picked up at Sunday
and so it put his name on the map. So
it's been a pretty glorious event for me.

Speaker 4 (54:21):
Oh No, incredible performances and thank you so much for
your time today. Very much appreciated.

Speaker 15 (54:25):
Thanks Francesca.

Speaker 4 (54:27):
Jeffrey rush there his new film, his new Kiwi film,
The Rule of Jenny pen As in cinemas this Thursday.
And The Veils have just released their seventh studio album.
It's called Aspidel's and Finn Andrews is going to be
with me after eleven to talk about the new album
and the upcoming tour and he's going to sing us
a song as well. It is twenty two past ten
grabric cover.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudgin and Wickles for
the best selection of Greens New's talks'd be.

Speaker 4 (54:53):
When you're looking for a good book to read, Wickles
knows that the range of choice can be overwhelming. It
is important that you find the one that's right for
you or for the person to whom you might be
giving it, and that's where the power of recommendation comes in.
That's why wick Calls offers the Top one hundred to
the Kids Top fifty and Jones picks the Top one
hundred and the Kids Top fifty have been voted for
by the readers of New Zealand, so thousands of people

(55:16):
have loved them enough to vote for them. Chances are
you love them too. Jones Picks is a selection of
books by the Wick Calls headbook buyer, their titles she
has read and loved, and they come with Jones' highest
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Books plus Jones Picks plus books, games, puzzles, toys, gorgeous
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(55:37):
wit Calls for Sunday Session, watchcy it is time for
talking entertainment now and I'm joined by Steve Newill, editor
at Flicks dot Code dot NZ.

Speaker 18 (55:56):
Good morning, good morning, here are you going?

Speaker 14 (55:58):
Very good?

Speaker 11 (55:59):
Thank you?

Speaker 4 (55:59):
And I'm going to say something which will be hugely
unpopular with the masses, but I am not really hugely
excited that Ted less I was back. I think I
see to you at the end of the last season.
It was so seemed to mean to I've had enough.
I don't want to see any more of it.

Speaker 18 (56:13):
Look maybe controversial for fans, but I've got to admit
I didn't make it to the end of the third season.

Speaker 4 (56:19):
Okay, I'm not on my so you missed it.

Speaker 18 (56:22):
I think this show, which became a global phenomenon, partly
due to its timing, I think because it was so
pandemic friendly, like watching this kind of cozy comedy was
so well timed for what we were all living through.
But it did also feel like the show Ted Lesso
committed one of the cardinal errors, which was just thinking
it's a bit too clever for its own good was

(56:43):
my feeling.

Speaker 4 (56:44):
Okay, I mean we all needed we all needed Ted.
When he arrived, it was just this gorgeous, warm, uplifting,
slightly quirky little number that won us all over right,
And I get that. But we're seeing a lot more
shows sort of being released that that can tick that
box as.

Speaker 8 (57:00):
Well now, I think so.

Speaker 18 (57:02):
And what felt really effortless I think in its first
season started to feel a lot more kind of constructed
as the show went on. So the fact that it's
been announced that it is confirmed to return for a
fourth season date unclear, but it's probably going into production
around July, so we're probably looking at next year. To
be honest, I kind of think a bit of a
break might actually help the writing of the show a

(57:22):
little bit, a bit of time to sort of process
how things have gone. And there has been a small
change to the writing team as well, but apparently they've
been working on scripts now for a few months, and
before the announcement that came this week confirming that the
show's back, they've just been kind of signing up cast
members one by one. Not a lot of other information
out at the stage other than sudeikis confirming in a

(57:45):
podcast that Ted Lasso will be coaching a woman's team
this season.

Speaker 4 (57:49):
Ah okay, so a little bit of a change there,
all right, A lot giving another year and I'll probably
be thrilled it's back, And I'm sure that's very good
news for a lot of our listeners.

Speaker 18 (57:58):
That I think it'll be good news for a lot
of people. Look, Francisco, who knows what bad things could happen.

Speaker 8 (58:02):
In the next year, Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (58:03):
I may need some more cheering up to see. We've
just spoken to Jeffrey Rush about The Rule of Jenny
Pen which he stars with John Lithgow. You've been to
secret What were your thoughts?

Speaker 8 (58:13):
I really enjoyed this.

Speaker 18 (58:16):
We spoke a little bit last week about James Ashcroft,
the New Zealand director, and his next film starring Roberts Narrow,
Michelle Monaghan and Adam Scott. Definitely a filmmaker's going places.
And if that's not a reason to see the Rule
of Jenny PM, then it's excellent cast and kind of
overall sense of creepiness really is that there's something that
makes a film that's set in an aged care facility

(58:39):
all the more mundane for it being one in alted
I feel, how did you light the setting of it?

Speaker 11 (58:45):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (58:45):
I love the setting of it and actually people, I mean,
it's got these two massive stars leading it, but have
a look around the cast that it's just like a
who's who of New Zealand acting from over the years, right,
isn't that awesome?

Speaker 18 (58:58):
When I spoke to Ashcroft, we talked a bit about
how he sort of took the view that really there
are no kind of caming in the film or extras.
He wanted to cast big New Zealand actors, even if
they're just ready in the background, because he wanted it
to feel like they could have a conversation with John
Lithgow or Jeffrey Rush And he also said that on

(59:21):
one of the director's favorite things about the shoot was
seeing every night the big circle of New Zealand's best
every night down at the bar with John and Jeffrey
just reminiscing and said that the bar made a killing
from them.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
I love, I love.

Speaker 18 (59:34):
I'd love to be in a conversation with Jeanet McDonald,
Ian mun Nathaniel Lee's and John Lithgow.

Speaker 4 (59:40):
Oh wouldn't it be wonderful? Thank you so much, Steve.
Nice to talk to you up next. Could donating blood
help reduce cancer risk? Michelle Dickinson, Doctor Michelle Dickinson is
with us. It is ten thirty.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on Newstalks B
and joining me.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
Now with a fascinating science I studied doctor Michel de
concern Good morning.

Speaker 19 (01:00:08):
Good morning.

Speaker 8 (01:00:09):
Do you give blood?

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:00:10):
I do.

Speaker 4 (01:00:10):
I had the call yesterday actually New Zealand Blood rang
that you sensed a would love to see you again,
and I was like, yeah, I know, it's on my
list for match. A big drive going on at the moment.
I mean, they always need blood, and they always need plasma.

Speaker 19 (01:00:22):
They always need blood, and it goes on people to
do lists because it's a bit like oh yeah, I'll
get round to it. But I think if you were
ever in a hospital seeing the challenges that are having
around the shortages of blood, especially certain blood types, then
we might all be a little bit more motivated to
give blood. So I'm here to motivate you thanks to
a news science study. It came up in the journal
cord Blood this week. And not only is giving blood

(01:00:46):
obviously good for those who receive it, I have been
a receiver. I am alive today because people donated blood,
and when I was a child, I needed several transfusions.
So I'm a big blood donator because I want to
give back to the fact that we're alive. A lot
of us go oh, I feel good after doing that.
Maybe I've helped somebody. Well, now you can not only
feel good for others, but you might be making yourself healthier.

(01:01:07):
So if that's what's going to drive you, this science
study is hopefully going to help you. So what they
did is a talk almost five hundred volunteers, and there
were men aged sixty to seventy two, and half of
these men had given blood three times a year for
forty years straight. Like these were serious blood donors, so
they donated more than a hundred times in their life.

(01:01:29):
And then the other half of these men had only
given blood less than ten times. In their life on
average five times in their whole life. And this study
wanted to know is there any benefit to frequently donating
blood and they were looking at some specific genetics involved
in that. And so, if you think about it, when
you give blood, you actually stress your body a little

(01:01:50):
bit because you've got this blood loss. And so what
your body does is it releases this hormone called EPO
and you have to suddenly make lots of new blood.
And so how do you make that blood? So it's
made in your bone marrow? But what type of blood
cells are you? And this study looked at whether or
not you preferentially make a certain type or whether your

(01:02:11):
body's renewing with certain type of blood cells. And what
it found is really really interesting. So when they studied
the blood, they actually found in the blood cells of
the donors who had donated a lot there was a
mutation in a gene called DNMT three A. And that
raised some flex because that is also the gene that

(01:02:32):
is known to be associated with leukemia, which is a
blood cancer. And they were like, oh, no, does that
mean that people who donate blood are more likely to
have leukemia? But they found the mutation in another part
of the gene, so not the part that typically creates leukemia,
but a different part of that same gene. So they
studied it more and they didn't studies in the lab,
and they did some studies in mice, and what they

(01:02:53):
found is actually, this mutation in this gene makes it
much less likely that you'll get leukemia because this type
of mutated cell, and these frequent blood donors, large amounts
of these mutated cells actually preferentially grows instead of leukemia cells.

(01:03:15):
And so it seems like having this mutation, even though
it's on the same gene line, is preferential because it
means you're much less likely to get leukemia and you're
much more likely to have more of these healthier cells
that outgrow by fifty percent in their lab studies the
leukemic cells, which means that you're much less likely to
have luthuma. Now they can't say that, but actually, if

(01:03:36):
you look at what they did, it's really clear that
there's a there's an advantage of giving blood because what
it's doing is it's refreshing all of your blood cells,
and it's refreshing them with the specific mutation that means
that they're less likely to develop intercouncers cells. And so
I mean it's if you're thinking about doing things for yourself.

Speaker 4 (01:03:55):
Absolutely, So what percentage of people hit it specific genetic
vuriation or mutation.

Speaker 19 (01:04:00):
So the frequent blood donors had fifty percent of them
had this as their predominance line, so well, a very
large amount. And the reason why it's interesting in these
older men in this study is that as we as
we age, our cells naturally create, like they sort of
accumulate mutations just as we get older, and those mutations
can lead to disease. So what was lovely is this

(01:04:22):
is a nice mutation that's happening that actually we know
can help to prevent disease. So, yeah, a d n
MT three A is a gene they were interested in,
which we know can create or cause or be one
of the sort of cause factors of leukemia. But this
mutation meant that it wouldn't become a leukemia cell. And
when they did it in the mice, literally the mice

(01:04:43):
they did without this mutation developed went on to develop leukemia.
And the ones that they injected this cell type from
these people from none of them.

Speaker 4 (01:04:50):
Developed the cancer. Fay Sniding you mentioned EPO. That is
what you was used with sports endurance dopen. What's that
to increase the red blood cells?

Speaker 16 (01:05:00):
Does it created?

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 19 (01:05:00):
So EPO is what is naturally least when you reduce,
you have a blood loss and it helps you to
create more blood cells very very quickly. So yeah, it's
been used in sports, but it's naturally there. If you
donate blood, your epio search will happen so that you
can make enough blood, so that you have enough blood
because we've just lost a letter or sal Yeah, but

(01:05:20):
all of this is EPO is an important part of
this because that hormone has to be present for this
to happen.

Speaker 4 (01:05:26):
Hey, look really quickly before we go, we should also
just mention that up until now, some people who lived
in the UK or France or Ireland between nineteen eighty
or nineteen ninety six had were not allowed to give
blood in New Zealand because of may cow disease and things.

Speaker 15 (01:05:41):
But that.

Speaker 4 (01:05:42):
That then has been removed, so that opens up as
that a law change took place last year, so now
even more people in the New Zealand can give blood.
So if you've always thought to yourself, oh, I can't
do it because I was living in Europe around that
particular time.

Speaker 19 (01:05:57):
A lot of the restrictions release has also been restrictions
around same sex partnerships, and there were restrictions before, so
a lot of people who weren't able to donate tolve
months ago. I can definitely donate now.

Speaker 4 (01:06:08):
So if you're thinking about it, just gon McCall and
have a chat to them about it.

Speaker 5 (01:06:11):
And it takes time.

Speaker 4 (01:06:13):
It doesn't take any time. It's very simple, and they
have wonderful drinks and foods and snacks and everything. Afterwards,
you can sit there.

Speaker 19 (01:06:21):
And restrodu sing it your leukemia.

Speaker 4 (01:06:27):
Exactly, Doctor Michel Dickinson, thank you so much. Mike vander
Ellsen has a little Moroccan inspired number for us. Next
it is twenty tw.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
Eleven the Sunday Session Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio powered
by News Talks.

Speaker 4 (01:06:42):
Mike vander Alison, our resident chef, joins us.

Speaker 11 (01:06:44):
Now, good morning, Good morning, Ah.

Speaker 4 (01:06:46):
I was so look. I was worried for a moment
that you wouldn't be there, that maybe the paper road
track had done you in and I don't know, you
were still stuck on the West Coast, unable to walk
to a car to get.

Speaker 11 (01:06:56):
Home down the side of some help me.

Speaker 20 (01:07:02):
I don't want to say that if you were.

Speaker 11 (01:07:05):
Oh my goodness, you're you've walked that track?

Speaker 16 (01:07:07):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:07:07):
Yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 11 (01:07:09):
Which end did you go from? Did you go from Punakaiki?

Speaker 4 (01:07:11):
No, we started at Yeah, we started at black Ball
and ended up Punakaiki. We did it in two days,
but we didn't have the Pike River I mentioned last week.
We didn't have the new Pike River Memorial track open
that part there, so I think it was only sixty
at the time. About sixty.

Speaker 21 (01:07:28):
I'm glad I did a bit of training before I
would potentially still be there.

Speaker 11 (01:07:33):
For those of you who want to ride.

Speaker 21 (01:07:35):
Or mountain bike in the Paparoa track, I strongly suggest
that you get some exercise it and it is epic.
It is an absolutely airpic ride. But that Pike Memorial
it's eleven kilometers down and then you're going to turn
around and come back up and then and then get
to the nearest heart. So that day was it was
about six and a half seven hours sitting on the
bike riding.

Speaker 4 (01:07:55):
That's when you call the helicopter your bike down. They
do that a lot on the Old Ghost Road, which
is my other favorite track, and that's the neck of
the woods, and a lot of people will get a
helicopter and they'll get dropped at the.

Speaker 14 (01:08:08):
Top and right on down.

Speaker 11 (01:08:10):
And that's how we executly that.

Speaker 21 (01:08:12):
On on Old Ghost Road, we did executly that right
to the end and then we've got helicopter at the
end and took us back to the top when we
wrote out. So to compare all three now they've done
the heathy, Old Ghost Road and the Papara. They're all
very different and they're all worthwhile doing.

Speaker 4 (01:08:27):
Absolutely couldn't agree with you more. Right, You've got a
little sort of Moroccans inspired number for us today.

Speaker 21 (01:08:34):
Yeah, we had lambsmoke fire class on was it Friday?
And we I made up the shimala paste because at
this time of the year, you know the gardens, these
heaps of ear and these heaps of parsley, So I
thought I'd make up a shimalda.

Speaker 8 (01:08:47):
And what is a shimalder.

Speaker 21 (01:08:48):
Shimurder is originate Adam Morocco, but now it's kind of
it's been taken on by many other countries like Genezia
and Algeria, and they just adapt it to their own ingredient.
But it's It's a wet marinate, so it's something that
you would coat over meat, bit.

Speaker 11 (01:09:04):
Lamb bit, pork bit, beef, fish, vegetables, and you leave.

Speaker 21 (01:09:09):
It on there for a period of time. It flavors
the meat, and then you actually cook it with that
wet baronade on there, and it is absolutely delicious. It's
a game changer. So if you've got heaps of parsi
or coriander in the gardens now or even not, just
go down the road.

Speaker 11 (01:09:24):
It's readily available.

Speaker 21 (01:09:26):
Now, make up a bulk amount of shimola paste and
then you can freeze it in like little snaplot bags,
or you can put it into little ice trays, and
then every time you need to go to you're kind
of like, I'm going to cook some chicken tonight.

Speaker 11 (01:09:37):
Oh, I don't know what to do it.

Speaker 21 (01:09:38):
I'm just gonna grill it, defrost some of this shamola paste,
rub it on there, leave it on there for a
good hour before you cook it, and it will change
your world. And just serve it with whatever you want.
It's really good on eat plants. It's really good rubbed
over carrots before you roast them. Super universal, fantastic sounds
di fine, I'll run you for it.

Speaker 11 (01:09:58):
Yeah, go on, okay quickly, So here we go.

Speaker 21 (01:10:01):
Easy to mate into a you can smash it up
in a mortime pesta, but I'll just use it like
a kitchen blender.

Speaker 11 (01:10:06):
So into a blender. Put one cup of parsley, one
like a decent bunch.

Speaker 21 (01:10:10):
Of coriander, two white onions that have been peeled and
just roughly chopped, and then four to say, six cloves
of garlic.

Speaker 11 (01:10:17):
Pop that into a blender. But let's add up into
it smooth. Pop it into a bowl.

Speaker 21 (01:10:21):
And then to that you add a tablespoon of ground tumeric,
a teaspoon of ground coriander, two teaspoons of ground cerman,
teaspoon of cara masala, two chilies depending on how hot
you want it, a teaspoon of smoked paprika, two teaspoons
of fine salt. And then the all importantness is the
marinating aspect of it. Two fresh lemons that have been
cut in half injuiced into it, and a tablespoonful of

(01:10:43):
subclour oil.

Speaker 11 (01:10:44):
Combine that all together. That is your wet paste. Rub
that over your meat. Ideally, if you're doing something like
a lamb shoulder or a larger cut of meat.

Speaker 21 (01:10:52):
You want to rub that over it, put it into
a bag and then fire it in the fridge, leaving
in the fridge over night before you cook it the
next day.

Speaker 4 (01:10:58):
I just love the fact you've got something in the
fridge ready to go that can be used over a
couple of different meals on different protein. I think that's fantastic.

Speaker 11 (01:11:05):
Yeah, completely completely changes it. Tried over cauliflower as well.

Speaker 21 (01:11:09):
Blanch your cauliflower first ten seconds and water ice water,
rub the shmular over and then fire that into your others.

Speaker 3 (01:11:15):
Love it.

Speaker 4 (01:11:16):
Thank you so much, Mike. Your shimula paste recipe. You
can find out it good from scratch dot co dot
inz and we will get it up on our news
talk ZIB website Ford Slash Sundays. We'll put it up
there today for you as well. Right, finally, we're talking
a lot more about perimenopause and menopause, which is amazing
for women because knowledge is power. But what about men?
Do they go through a male menopause? Is he something

(01:11:38):
more to the grumpy man syndrome? Erin O'Hara is going
to talk about mailmnopause myth or reality next here on
News Talk.

Speaker 1 (01:11:46):
Zb Sunday with Style the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin
and Winkles for the best selection of Greg Reeds News Talks.

Speaker 4 (01:11:55):
EBB and its Time to Talk Wellness, and Erin O'Hara
joins us. Now, good morning, Good morning. So malmnopause myth
or reality?

Speaker 22 (01:12:04):
Yeah, you mentioned grumpy mens and I was like, that's
what I was kind of going to bring up, but
then I thought I'd make it after for US Sunday
Morning and call it may or menopause instead.

Speaker 4 (01:12:14):
Okay, fair enough, fair enough? Does it exist?

Speaker 11 (01:12:18):
Yeah?

Speaker 22 (01:12:18):
So I think men don't really notice too much that
there's the hormone changes. Like women, there's a sudden decline
and there's a definite noticeable change for women around that
sort of mid forties to fifties of the hormone changes.
When it comes to men, actually, the hormone changes are
more subtle. It's the main hormone for men as testocerone,

(01:12:39):
and the drop in test sacerone would be on average
about one percent per year from the age of forty onwards,
so it's a lot more of a subtle decline. So
it's not going to be something that you'd suddenly get
sudden symptoms that you'd be like, oh, something's not quite right.

Speaker 4 (01:12:53):
So you might not notice that till you're more sort
of late fifties or sixties or something.

Speaker 22 (01:12:56):
Yeah, it'd be more noticeable later on, and unless there's
been other things like medication uses or a higher body
mass index or obesity, then it would be a little
bit more noticeable. Maybe that that drop in testosterone might
come sooner and might be more noticeable now. Potential symptoms
for a drop in decline in testsoscerin levels can be

(01:13:18):
reduced libido, also rectil dysfunction, low energy, and low mood.
And I think people don't really relate that to being
a change in hormones. Sometimes they think, oh, maybe it's
just the work stress. But actually sometimes there can be
a little bit more to that of suddenly noticing mood changes,
maybe a little bit more irritable, a little bit more grumpy,

(01:13:39):
or maybe feel really depressed, low energy and not sleeping
that great, as well as noticing physical body changes like
a reduced lean muscle mass and maybe an increase in
body fat. That might be something quite foreign to you.
And that's where all that change in hormones affects how
the body functions.

Speaker 13 (01:13:58):
Now.

Speaker 22 (01:13:58):
Always the first step is like maybe check in with
your doctor, maybe getting some testing done, because don't just
assume odds. Maybe testoscerine chaines. It's good to actually get
some blood tests done and looking at an androgen profile.
So it's that change in hormones. So looking at free
test sosterone, follicle stimulating hormone lucinating hormone SHBG, which is

(01:14:22):
sex binding hormone globulin. So getting all of those tests
done and then you can kind of be like, is
this actually a hormone change or is there something else
going on that's making your energy and mood and libido
and all those things drop. Now there are natural ways
we can support testosterone levels. Always, the first thing is
looking at your lifestyle. So things like exercise amazing build

(01:14:45):
some lean muscle mass, really good for your hormone levels.
So maybe to add in some white training, some hit
sessions really good for building the lean muscle mass up.
Also a supporting that with your diet, because you can't
just go to the gym and not eat well, otherwise
you won't get the results of building the lean muscle mass,
so eating enough protein. Also, fats are really important for
building hormones, So making sure you're getting enough of the

(01:15:08):
right type of fats, your nuts, your seeds, your olive oil,
your avocado, all of those things great for hormone building,
hormone balance, and also addressing your stress, which is one
of the big things that actually has lots of clinical
research and dropping testosterone levels is actually long term stress
can alliphate cortisol levels, which then has a decline in

(01:15:29):
testosterone levels. So if you know that you're living a
high stress lifestyle at she addressing that and that will
have a huge effect on testosterone levels and help you
just get that extra support, whether it's like bringing in
more relaxation tools, which I think women seem to be
a little bit more mindful around bringing the balance to
the life. Maybe men need to look at ways of

(01:15:49):
slowing down, maybe finding the balance, prioritizing good sleep quality,
and maybe going to a yoga meditation class. And yes,
men can go to those sorts of things as well,
and it's very helpful for them. So maybe just addressing
how you're managing stress and keeping that balance because it
will definitely help hormone balance. And also the other thing,

(01:16:10):
if you're checking in with your doctor look at other options,
so things like sometimes test oser and replacement therapy is required.
So if you're just really not feeling right and testoser
and levels are really low, that can sometimes be a
good option alongside all your natural things as well.

Speaker 4 (01:16:26):
Erin O'Hara, Thank you so much. We'll catch to you
next week.

Speaker 10 (01:16:28):
It is six to.

Speaker 1 (01:16:29):
Eleven the Sunday Session Full Show podcast on iHeartRadio, powered
by News Talks at B.

Speaker 4 (01:16:38):
The Veils have just released their seventh studio album. It's
called Aspidel's More on the title just a Moment. It
is a beautifully haunting album and it is a real
treat to have Finn Andrews sing a songwriter from The Veils,
in the studio next to chat about the making of
the album and sing us a song. We're going to
end the hour with a little bit of new music

(01:17:00):
from the album.

Speaker 14 (01:17:00):
This is the ladder I can't at instandly out across
the walls by which you have the lad which you had,

(01:17:26):
the lad which you had, the lad which you have
the lad.

Speaker 1 (01:18:01):
Welcome to the Sunday Session with fran Jessica, Rudkins and Wiggles.

Speaker 3 (01:18:05):
For the basilic of Great Reeds.

Speaker 4 (01:18:15):
This is a Sunday Session. I'm Francesca Rudkin with you
until midday. Coming up this hour Piney on Lion, Liam
Lawson's What a challenging f one Start Megan. It's fresh
back from Washington, DC and Joan has a new book
from Australian author Claire Leslie Hall.

Speaker 3 (01:18:32):
This Sunday Session, Well, I close my.

Speaker 14 (01:18:43):
I've fantasi.

Speaker 4 (01:18:50):
So this is Mortal Wound from the Vales. This is
the third single of their new album, Aspidels, released in January.
Aspidels is a seventh studio album from the globally loved
British Kiwi indie band The Veils, back in New Zealand
after a big UK and Europe tour with Gigsie to
start here this Friday. Lead singer Finn Andrews is here

(01:19:10):
with me now. Good morning, Finn, so lovely to have
you in the studio.

Speaker 8 (01:19:13):
Good morning, thanks for having me.

Speaker 4 (01:19:15):
You've spent the last couple of months in the UK
and Europe. How did the European tour go?

Speaker 8 (01:19:21):
Yeah, it was, it was fantastic. I think we've never
had a tour quite like it. Actually really really enlivening
middle of winter, which was a shock after we've been
living on Waihiki before that, So it went from sort
of high summer to northern Germany in January and that was, yeah,
genuinely bracing, but great, great shows.

Speaker 4 (01:19:44):
Did I hear that one of your favorite things on
this tour was trying a Sicilian orange that's.

Speaker 8 (01:19:49):
Got around, It's got around.

Speaker 3 (01:19:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:19:52):
It was towards the end of the tour and we
were all quite malnourished at that point, and we were
playing in Rome and just walked past this little grosser
and got this bag of oranges and we all, yeah,
had this sort of outer body experience with these incredible rages.
That's middle aged.

Speaker 14 (01:20:11):
Yes, I love it.

Speaker 4 (01:20:13):
Let's talk about the album Aspidels. Where did that title
come from?

Speaker 8 (01:20:19):
It was from a poem that my dad sent me,
and the word just stuck in my head and in
this magical way that seems to happen, a sort of
a song kind of bloomed out of that word, and
then the album sort of followed from that. So yeah,
I think I like the idea of it's it's from

(01:20:41):
the sort of Greek classical mythology, and it's the flower
of the underworld, the flower that lives Forever in death,
and yeah, it kind of tied the room together with
this record, which is which is pretty obsessed with sort
of matters of life and death and purpose. Why is that?

Speaker 4 (01:21:04):
Where does that come from?

Speaker 8 (01:21:05):
It's a great question. I don't know. I think I've
always just used songwriting as a way to try and
process these thoughts that are too big for my daily life.
I think, these big questions that elude me and elude everyone,
I suppose. But yeah, so it sort of songs are

(01:21:28):
away filtering through those those thoughts and trying to make
some sense of the kind of chaos of everyday life.

Speaker 4 (01:21:35):
I suppose have those thoughts changed since you've become a father,
You've got a toddler, yeah, in the family now.

Speaker 8 (01:21:43):
Oh yeah, She's completely reconfigured my world in so many
amazing ways. Yeah, I think it does. It makes you.
It was also I had children a little later than
someone I'm forty now, and so it's sort of was
kind of paired with a bit of a midlife sort
of questioning as well. I suppose it certainly makes you ponder.

Speaker 4 (01:22:04):
Yeah, the mid life come at any time and in
many different shapes.

Speaker 8 (01:22:09):
Yeah, I seem to be getting intermissient stabs of it.

Speaker 4 (01:22:15):
Is it true that you got chat chpt to write
the blueps about your songs?

Speaker 13 (01:22:19):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (01:22:20):
Well yes, that was specifically if the label wanted, like,
you know, a breakdown of all of the songs, not
for any human to read, but just to give to
Spotify to put in. So I just got chat gbt
to write it. It did a really good job. It said, yeah,
a lot of things. I didn't realize that the songs
were about. But it was enlightening.

Speaker 4 (01:22:42):
So why didn't you try and sum them up?

Speaker 17 (01:22:44):
Was it just was it?

Speaker 4 (01:22:45):
Was it a time issue? Or was it just out
of curiosity to see how they pretended to be interpreted.

Speaker 8 (01:22:49):
I just couldn't think of a worse use of time
than sitting down having to explain what each of these
songs meant. I don't. I really think I'm the last
person that anyone should ask about them as well. So
just like I'm so close to them, I don't remember
writing them, you know. So it's like I feel like
my interpretation is the least interesting generally, So I thought

(01:23:12):
why not use this, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:23:15):
Use may I When you say you can't remember writing them,
is that because they you can't remember what was on
your mind at that time, or they just sort of
come quite fast and furious, and then you're in there
and there it is.

Speaker 8 (01:23:27):
I think. Yeah, I think like everyone has a thing
they do that they enjoy because they disappear a bit
when they're doing it, and you know, whether it's sort
of going to the gym or sailing or running or
I don't know, or yeah, playing music, or we kind
of lose yourself and that's that's. Yeah, when I'm writing songs,

(01:23:52):
I when I'm writing a song, a good song, I
tend to not really be there anymore, and that's I
think that's that's where the pleasure lies as well. Yeah,
so it's you know, I don't really remember a lot
of the time what I was thinking.

Speaker 4 (01:24:07):
And do you remember recording because I know that that
was a bit of a treat for you. You recorded
at Neil Fin's Roundhead Studios.

Speaker 2 (01:24:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:24:17):
Yeah, it's a beautiful studio here that we're all very
lucky to have where we recorded it in three days,
which was very very quick, and or recorded it like
the records I grew up loving really in the fifties
and sixties, all recorded to tape or recorded live. Yeah,

(01:24:41):
it was a very sort of old school production. It's
a shame because I love recording and I could easily
spend years in the studio, so doing it in three
days was very restrained, and I instantly regretted it because
I wanted more time in there. It's so fun in there.
But I think it was it suited these songs. We
wanted to make something really intimate and direct and like

(01:25:03):
like we're just in the room with you. That's but
the best way to do it.

Speaker 4 (01:25:07):
Oh, you definitely achieved that.

Speaker 8 (01:25:09):
Sure.

Speaker 4 (01:25:09):
This is the Veil seventh album, the first The Runaway
Found turned twenty last year.

Speaker 5 (01:25:17):
I hate to say this.

Speaker 4 (01:25:18):
I mean, you did sign. Let's put things into context.
You did sign your first record deal when you were sixteen,
which is very young. But two decades in this music industry.
What have you learned about music and recording albums in
twenty years?

Speaker 8 (01:25:35):
Yeah, I mean I've learned so much. I didn't know
a thing when I started. Obviously, it was still just
a child, and I don't know what have I learned.
I've learned to relax with myself. I think in the
beginning I was terrified of everything and felt like such
an impost and the whole thing. And now now I'm

(01:25:55):
just sort of content with being an impostor and it's okay.
You just sort of I think you always feel a
bit like that. You just do what feels right and
to sort of block out everything else, just carry on,
keep making things for as long as I possibly can.

Speaker 4 (01:26:15):
Because it's been an extraordinary twenty years. And I thought
of you actually earlier in the year when David Lunch died,
because of course you worked with him and appeared on
the Twin Peaks series, which must have been one of
the highlights of the last twenty years.

Speaker 8 (01:26:26):
Oh yeah, that was great. It was a great weekend.
Our keyboardist at the time, he was very good at,
i don't know, sort of seizing an opportunity, and so
he was just like, we're going to make this the
best weekend of our lives. And he rented like a
Mustang convertible in Los Angeles and we went to the

(01:26:48):
filming and felt like kind of decks but awesome as well.

Speaker 4 (01:26:54):
Right, you know you're going to get the chance to
do that.

Speaker 8 (01:26:57):
Yeah, we thought that was a good time to do it.
But yeah, it was amazing working with him, just being
in that world for a brief time. Was a real
privilege and it was very sad to see in pass.

Speaker 4 (01:27:10):
How much do you love taking an album and then
performing it on stage? You've got a tour coming up.

Speaker 2 (01:27:16):
Yeah we do.

Speaker 8 (01:27:16):
Yeah, we're playing all over the country. It was a
beautiful thing on the European Talk so that the album
came out the day before the first show, so it
really was like this introduction to everyone of the record,
and yeah, so I guess it will feel like that
here as well. People have had a little more time
now to get to grips with the record. And I

(01:27:38):
think because this was such a such a it's such
an intimate, restrained album, I wasn't really sure what the
reaction to it would be. I was sort of imagining
it would be quite a restrained reaction. But it's had
a very very immediate I'm not just saying this in
promo mode, but sort of like the like the record before,
it was sort of people liked a few songs on it,

(01:28:00):
but I didn't feel this sort of immediate people bring
it into their lives in such a big way so quickly.
This this record seems to have had that effect. And
so yeah, it's really obviously the more intense these songs
sort of have have intertwined with people's lives. The more
intensely they've been intertwined with people's lives, the more intense

(01:28:21):
the live shows are as well. And so yeah, we're
really looking forward to taking it on the road, taking
it around New Zealand.

Speaker 4 (01:28:28):
Well, we are very excited because you're going to perform
a number for us, now, aren't you?

Speaker 8 (01:28:32):
Yes, yes, we are.

Speaker 5 (01:28:33):
What are we going to?

Speaker 11 (01:28:33):
What are you?

Speaker 4 (01:28:34):
You've got Dave here on violin? What are you two
going to perform?

Speaker 8 (01:28:37):
We're going to play a song called Oh Fortune Teller,
which was kind of inspired. I think we made a
few records in Los Angeles over the years, and they
have these fantastic fortune Tellers sort of shops, stores, storefronts there.
They always have this sort of the palmistry hands and
the neon and yeah, we sort of I've visited a

(01:29:00):
few over the years. I've always found the idea of
sort of wanting to know the future is an odd
thing when when the resons so overwhelming, I don't know,
how do you have b knowing the future? Maybe that's
too much. Yeah, so that's kind of a song about that,
a song about longing for to know the future, but
being afraid of too much information, terrifying information. Right, let's

(01:29:23):
do it here we go fu to tell.

Speaker 14 (01:29:32):
Don't tell me too we cross we so.

Speaker 3 (01:29:47):
We so we to.

Speaker 2 (01:30:11):
Have been.

Speaker 14 (01:30:14):
Old with no love to show.

Speaker 3 (01:30:26):
You tell me, oh love about.

Speaker 14 (01:30:31):
And I don't die. I just leaved grow and grow.
You savedside.

Speaker 23 (01:30:47):
Inside, Oh, you saved inside.

Speaker 14 (01:31:01):
Inside.

Speaker 16 (01:31:05):
Oh you counted all my things deniedly then blows.

Speaker 14 (01:31:40):
You read it in.

Speaker 12 (01:31:45):
So much sort.

Speaker 13 (01:31:49):
And it just grows, fair, grows and grow, save side
and side.

Speaker 14 (01:32:04):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (01:32:15):
So that was absolutely extraordinary. Thank you so much, so

(01:32:58):
so much for coming in and performing for us than
Andrew's best of luck with the tour, and thank you
so much to Dave on the violin.

Speaker 8 (01:33:04):
As well, Thanks for having us Real pla.

Speaker 4 (01:33:07):
Aspidals is available on CD and vinyl now. The Vals
are also touring New Zealand from this Friday. For both
album and tour details, head to Banished music dot com.
Twenty two past eleven.

Speaker 3 (01:33:19):
Keep It's Simple, It's Sundays.

Speaker 1 (01:33:20):
The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and Wig calls for
the best selection of Graves, news talks.

Speaker 4 (01:33:27):
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Speaker 3 (01:34:24):
All the highs and lows, talking the big issues of
the week. The panel on the Sunday session and joining.

Speaker 4 (01:34:31):
Me today on the panel. We have directed at Capital
Ben Thomas.

Speaker 21 (01:34:34):
Good morning, Ben, monitor, Nice.

Speaker 5 (01:34:36):
To talk to you.

Speaker 4 (01:34:37):
And we're also joined by editor and journalist Joe mccarell.

Speaker 24 (01:34:40):
Hi, Joe, good morning.

Speaker 3 (01:34:42):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:34:42):
Okay, So an incredibly busy week just being and ahead
for the Prime minister. Clearly there is a lot of
hard work being done, plenty of action. Unfortunately it takes
a little while to see results, and then we get
a pole drop for the Prime Minister, which you know
wasn't great. But Ben, I don't see that he is

(01:35:05):
in any danger of being rolled at the moment, especially
when you're a party that is promising overseas investors' stability.

Speaker 3 (01:35:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:35:15):
Look, I think that at this stage it will be
kind of crazy, you know, to instigate a leadership spill
of any kind. You know, I think it's pretty well
established that Luxon is a drag on the National Party's polling.
He doesn't connect with the public in the way that
a lot of our you know, some of our previous
recent Prome ministers have had. I'd probably leave Chris Sipkins

(01:35:38):
out of that, but you know, suddenly John Key and
just under our durn At the same time, you know,
as you said, you know the instability that comes with
changing prime minister midstream. You would have to have a
much more dia sort of situation on your hands or
much less hope for a turnaround, you know, in a
pretty you know, sort of mediocre polling before you would

(01:36:01):
take those steps.

Speaker 4 (01:36:02):
But Joe, does it matter? Maybe you don't connect the
way previous prime ministers have, but if you can deliver,
if you could do what you said you were going
to do, which was fix the economy, does that matter?

Speaker 24 (01:36:16):
I think it does still matter a bit. And I
would also challenge whether or not Luxon is delivering on
what he's promising. I mean, I think he talks a
good game, but I feel like nothing happens. I feel
like his persona versus reality, And I don't know. I mean,
I would agree with Ben that he's failing to connect

(01:36:38):
with New Zealand, and I would also slightly agree that
maybe there won't be a leadership challenge or it's an
interesting time to go overseas. I was thinking of Bulger
going to Chogham and you know, barely got the duty
free back before shipping with them. But I don't I mean,
I think basically nobody would want to step up right now.
But I mean what PM has come back, you know,

(01:37:01):
bad poll after bad pole, poor preferential PM ratings, open
discussion on the radio about whether or not they'll be rolled,
and gone on to win the election. So I wouldn't
be surprised if there was some pretty serious thought being
given into National's leadership by National Party MPACE.

Speaker 4 (01:37:21):
So mean, what does Crystal Luxon need to do then
over the coming months in order to settle.

Speaker 2 (01:37:28):
That Well, it's essentially a combination of what you and
Joe have said, which is that he needs to First
of all, he needs the economy to turn around. That
is the biggest drag on Nationals polling is that the
cost of living crisis. It's evolved somewhat so to take
in you know, sort of higher interest rates more than

(01:37:49):
sort of you know, rapidly increasing crisis. So inflation sort
have been brought under control in the last year, but
of course prices haven't fallen and there have been new
pressures as a result of the higher interest rates to
get that done. That means that things are tough for
people and their families and for businesses and things didn't
get appreciably less tough in the year and a bit

(01:38:10):
after National was elected. And you know, is it because
people sort of expect things to happen too quickly in
terms of turning the ship around. Probably, But then you know,
politicians are pretty happy to let them sort of let
voters think that there will be a sudden turnaround, you know,
during an election campaign they if they win, So you know,

(01:38:33):
it really is that sort of thing that essentially that
the economic malaise has just kind of continued. It's continued
longer than I think most people expected, including Luxon and
the Finance Minister, but they're hoping that the turnaround finally
sort of comes in the second half of this year.
So the challenge now is just to sort of show

(01:38:54):
that there is enough initiative, enough new actions taken to
grow the economy that they'll be kind of rewarded with
the confidence of the electorate until they get to that
point where the business cycle is sort of coming up
and people are feeling a bit better about their situations.
In any case, Joe, if.

Speaker 4 (01:39:12):
We look at the polls and we sit in and
for the first time Chris Hopkins became preferred Prime minister,
over Christopher Laxon only just but if you take a
look at that, is there a vote towards Labor going gosh,
look at them and then in this invigorating new vision
they have for New Zealand or is it almost a
protestote going? Actually, guys, we expect more from you, get

(01:39:33):
going and deliver. We want to see more from the
current coalition.

Speaker 24 (01:39:37):
Oh, I mean, I think right Bridges make that point
pretty well. I think people are saying this isn't good enough.
But if they're saying that, now, you know, how much
more runway do you get before you're not the preferred option.
I mean, I don't think there's a lot of voters
in New Zealand who think Labour's offering an absolute dazzling

(01:40:00):
vision right now either. But at the same time they're
in opposition. So so if you're leaving the country, lead it,
bring it, bring on all these changes, bring on all
this economic growth, and you know it, Ben's absolutely right.

Speaker 17 (01:40:14):
I think you know, some of that is.

Speaker 24 (01:40:16):
Absolutely outside of Luxe's hands, and he's very much a
hostage to Trump and what Trump decides. But if the
cost of living continues to be the incredible challenges for
New Zealand. If people are really struggling, yeah, they will
blame the party who are currently government.

Speaker 4 (01:40:34):
We had Sam Subbs on the show in the first
hour this morning and we were talking about Nikola Willis
saying that she is going to seek some advice on
key We Saver and is considering upping contributions. And his
thought is, Yep, we need to start, you know, upping
that by you know, even if it's half a percentage
a year to get to sort of nearro where Australia's at.
And by July this year they're going to be at

(01:40:55):
twelve percent of salaries and wages being contributed to key
We Saber, Do you think we desperately need to look
at this and quite quickly, Ben, because we've been a
little bit it's slow and addressing the issues that we
have about our agent population.

Speaker 2 (01:41:11):
We certainly need to do something about saving The other
alternative would be to do something about house prices, and
politicians have been proved proven pretty unwilling to do that.
Bishop's making some good progress now, the previous government based
some good progress and freeing up land use. But look there,
you know New Zealand Super was predicated on the idea

(01:41:33):
that people would own their own homes when they retired,
and it would give them a sort of basic sort
of living wage for you know, living allowance for a
certain period. You know, it didn't contemplate people, you know,
routinely living into their sort of late eighties or nineties,
you know, wanting to go on overseas trips and also

(01:41:54):
not owning their own homes. And so we do need
to get the savings right up considerably. Pretty tough time
to try and do it when people are current, it's
squeezed by the cost of living. You probably want to
do the same thing that Grant Robertson did with is
now a boart of you know, place insurance scheme, which

(01:42:17):
is introduce it when people are feeling like they've got
a little bit more leeway in their pockets.

Speaker 4 (01:42:22):
Joe, your thoughts would you like to see an increase
in the contribution or maybe making it compulsory.

Speaker 24 (01:42:27):
Well, I tell you we're looking for a vision for
the future. Sign me up for the one. Sam Stubbs
with outlining, I mean, we're all living with dignity. We're
paying for the infrastructure deficit out of our own savings.
I mean, that's the future I'd love to see Yeah,
I do want to see it go up. I mean,
I take your point, Ben, it doesn't feel like the
perfect time, but they'll never be the perfect time. I think.

(01:42:48):
You know, those default rates, they are so sticky and
people stay on them for you know, potentially up until retirement.
You know, we need to be saving more.

Speaker 15 (01:42:57):
We're not.

Speaker 24 (01:42:58):
We are an aging population and there just will not
be the money in the kitty to pay for the
retirement that most of us are looking to have. And
so yeah, I'm one hundred percent raise it and you know,
continue to chip away at it overtime so we can
fund our own retirement.

Speaker 4 (01:43:14):
Ben Thomas and Joe McCarroll, thank you so much for
being with us. It is twenty five to twelve. Up
next Jason Pine.

Speaker 1 (01:43:23):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks
at B.

Speaker 4 (01:43:28):
And coming up at mid day is Jason Pine with
Weekend Sport and he joins me in the studio. Now,
good morning, good morning, okay, So it is really all
about Melbourne, if one, Liam Lawson this afternoon five, I've
got a bit to do this stuff and I've got
to get jobs done by five so I'm ready to go.

Speaker 20 (01:43:43):
I think you should be OK.

Speaker 4 (01:43:44):
I have seen your list of jobs, but it's ostensive.

Speaker 20 (01:43:46):
It feels like it feels like five hours should be
enough by the tommy and knock it on the head
here and get home.

Speaker 22 (01:43:52):
Look on.

Speaker 20 (01:43:52):
I'm not going to tell you what to you know,
what to prioritize this afternoon, but if you can be
done by five, that might help you out in terms
of your formula one watching. Yeah, looking forward to getting
to Melbourne after midday and just sort of setting the scene.
It's been a pretty challenging couple of days for Liam Lawson.
Didn't go well for him in practice. His car hasn't
been playing ball with him, had nothing to do with him.
They haven't been able to really work out what's gone wrong.

(01:44:14):
Couple of power outages and things like that.

Speaker 4 (01:44:16):
And also what I loved after the practice runs he
did actually come out and go. I just wasn't fast enough,
but he didn't. Yes, there's been some issues with the
car and things as well. But what I like about
him is he's not is not pretending to be anything.
He's not you know, any very very you know honestly
just went yep, no, not driving as fast as though
I should be.

Speaker 20 (01:44:36):
No, very key, very key hasn't hasn't driven that course
before much either, which actually won't help him this afternoon
because he didn't really get too many laps and then
practice already qualifying. So the one thing that or one
thing that plays in his favorite is that it is
absolutely teeming down in Melbourne at the moment, and his
forecast to be raining when the race starts at five
o'clock out of time, and rain always shortens things up,

(01:44:59):
you know, brings them together. He's eighteenth on the grid.
That's twenty twenty cars, so he's right at the back,
but harder to pass when it's a dry day. When
it's wet, chaos can happen.

Speaker 4 (01:45:12):
It's been really interesting watching of courses as the first
race of this season, and there is so much more
to come in, so many developments and all sorts of
things to come. So you don't know judge things on
the first on the first race, but the rookies yesterday
all were learning the lesson that one very small mistake
actually can have major consequences.

Speaker 20 (01:45:29):
Yeah, the long game, it's so right. Bob mc murray
was on the radio with me yesterday saying, hey, this
is just well yesterday it was just day two of
seventy two. Yeah, you know there are twenty four Grand
Prix with three days each of them. So while I
think we all would love to see Liam do really
well to start with, you're right, he's just learning his trade,
as all the new rookies are, so he won't be
judged on what happens this afternoon. But there is so

(01:45:52):
much of a spotlight now on him as one of
only twenty races in Formula one, the spotlight just gets
exponentially bigger from what he's used to do.

Speaker 4 (01:46:00):
Absolutely problematic car and some rain. If you cross the
finish line, I'd give you a golf clap for that.

Speaker 20 (01:46:07):
I think in many ways successfully and it's finishing. So
because you have to think they're not all twenty will
we'll see, we will see.

Speaker 4 (01:46:16):
You were, of course in Auckland, because you're going to
call the Auckland FC versus Central Coast Mariner today at
you care man, we're going to be calling a game
of football and then Walls sort of with one eye
sort of maybe.

Speaker 20 (01:46:29):
On always very singularly focused Francesca, but I will obviously
be keeping tabs on the F one and watch for
replay afterwards. Yeah, Auckland f C this afternoon playing the Mariners.
They can go nine points clear. They're a year old now,
they launched on the fourteenth of March and here they
are now, I mean have swept all before them. So
that's great story. And super Rugby continues to be really watchable.

(01:46:52):
The Blues not quite getting it done last night against
the Chiefs one king. That's the second one point loss
two weeks it was. And I've got the Crusaders coming
next weekend. So yeah, plenty of chimement. So we'll cover
off the rugby and a lot of motor racing and
other bits and pieces too.

Speaker 4 (01:47:05):
Piney injury, busy afternoon. Thank you, I were back with
you at midday.

Speaker 1 (01:47:10):
So Sunday session full show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by
News Talks FB.

Speaker 3 (01:47:17):
Travel with Wendy Woo tours where the world is yours
for now and.

Speaker 4 (01:47:23):
Our travel corresponded to Megan Singleton joins me. Now, good morning,
Good morning, Washington, DC.

Speaker 3 (01:47:30):
How was it?

Speaker 17 (01:47:31):
Oh my gosh, I love that city. So I've written
I've basically updated my post on Washington for first time
is I've also got a post on Washington for like
hidden gems. But let me just tell you about like
what it was like this week at the moment, I'm
on Wayhiki Island, so you're going to hear all sorts
of other things going on through this through my earbuds.

(01:47:52):
It's cherry blossom season and I had tried to get
there in time for it, but we were about two
weeks too early. So what I would suggest for people
if you want to see the blossoms, there's three thousand
trees all lining around the title basin of Jefferson Memorials.
Absolutely breathtaking, and so late March to early April is
the peak time for that. We went to an ice

(01:48:14):
hockey game. Oh my goodness, I love live sport in
the US. We've talked about this before, so we watched
the Washington Capitals play the Detroit Red Wings. Ovechkin so
this is a new name to me. Alex Ovechkin was
about to break Wayne Gretzky's record and no one ever
thought he could goal scoring record. So we came home

(01:48:35):
with bobblehead dolls. Every person in the stadium was given
a bobblehead of Alex Ovechkin. It is now honestly, I've
put it on the blog because it's ridiculous and it's
now sitting pride of place in our house. The People's
House is a new exhibit about the White House, and honestly,
it's so cool. It's interactive. I just think these old

(01:48:58):
museums are going to struggle with these new ones that
are coming in that are so interactive that you touched
the wall and because there's an image pro jected onto
it with a wee button, that suddenly you've transformed yourself
into the Oval office or the Blue Room or the
dining room and you're in the White House. It's very
very clever because you shake the people like us who
can't get in.

Speaker 4 (01:49:19):
Well, that's the thing, you can't. They do still run
tours through the White House, and it's virtually impossible to
get in, isn't it.

Speaker 17 (01:49:25):
It is because you've got to go through your senator,
and so all the Americans are already doing that. We
are next tier or the embassy, but the embassy can't
even get tickets because all of the American citizens are
lining up to get in. So yeah, it's pretty pretty
tough to get in.

Speaker 4 (01:49:41):
Something that really struck me about Washington DC is just
the incredible amount of museums that they have and how
many of them are free.

Speaker 17 (01:49:53):
So the Smithsonian Institute runs seventeen of the museums and
they're all free. So the Natural History Museum, the Museum
of American American History, the Museum there Art, portrait Gallery, music,
they're all free and they all line along. It's massive
that you couldn't really walk it. You couldn't even see

(01:50:13):
all of the museums in a week if you went
to one every single day. Tell you what else is free?
The Library of Congress, which is the most stunning building
we went into there, the Capitol Building you can go
in that's free. It's really really cool. And then there's
a whole new area called the Wharf which we stayed
in and I absolutely loved it. And it's on the

(01:50:34):
Potomac River and it's a new sort of up and
coming area of great restaurants, rooftop bars, hotels, and it's
still within cooey of the mall. So you could hire
an e bike, go from their total around the mall,
get your museums in, you know, or uber we ubered
everywhere as well, so it's pretty easy to get around.

Speaker 4 (01:50:54):
I also love the fact that you did an evening
cycling tour of all the monuments. I love a different
way to see a city, and they are breathtaking.

Speaker 17 (01:51:02):
The Americans still, it's so well, they'll all lit up.
The Martin Luther King the more for me, like the
Korean War Memorial is probably the most moving in all
of DC. But people talk about the World War Two Memorial,
the Vietnam War Wall of everybody's names etched into it,
and families are there rubbing etchings onto paper of their

(01:51:25):
descendants and stuff. It was just it's a really, really
beautiful city. And I tell you what, doesn't matter who's
the president. You honestly don't really see or notice anything different,
except for a few mega caps that are available opposite
the White House but t shirts, but otherwise you don't
really notice it.

Speaker 4 (01:51:42):
Thank you so much, Meghan. Meghan has put this blog
up on her She's put a post up on her
blog blogger at large dot com. It is eleven to twelve.

Speaker 3 (01:51:52):
Books with wiggles for the best election of Greek Reeves.

Speaker 4 (01:51:57):
Joan McKenzie joins me now to talk books. Good morning,
good morning, Thank you very much. You've brought me a
book which I'm very excited about. Broken Country. Claire Leslie all, yes,
it's very good. Tell me about it well.

Speaker 25 (01:52:10):
It is the story essentially of a love triangle that
goes terribly, terribly wrong. It's set in nineteen sixties in
a small farming village where a husband and wife, Beth
and Frank, are living their life, living very happily on
their farm, when suddenly she gets word that her first
love has come back and moved on to the farm

(01:52:30):
next door, and he has with him his son. Now,
Beth and Frank had a son who they lost, and
so she feels drawn towards this child of her former
lover and goes and spends increasing amounts of time with them, which,
as you can imagine, for a woman who was otherwise
happily married, is going to somehow undercut the relationship.

Speaker 8 (01:52:52):
But the thing about the.

Speaker 25 (01:52:53):
Book is that there is all through it you're aware
that there is a murder trial going on. And I'm
not giving any spoilers here, because on the very first
page you know that somebody has died, and through the
course of the book there is a trial which is
going on, and then at the end of course you
figure out you find out exactly what it was that happened. So,
as I say, it's a love trial where things went

(01:53:14):
very love triangle where things went very bad. And the
way that it's laid out in the story of essentially
these three people and the relationships between them, is really
well done.

Speaker 4 (01:53:25):
She's a British author.

Speaker 25 (01:53:27):
She's also an actress.

Speaker 4 (01:53:28):
Oh, okay, so this is set in the UK. Yes,
it is small English farming village. It was a secret
affair until it was a public scandal. It's a good
line for the coversiment. Okay, brilliant, very much looking forward
to that. Charlotte McConaughey has a new book.

Speaker 10 (01:53:45):
Out she does.

Speaker 25 (01:53:46):
It's called Wild Dark Shore. And I read this book
and the first thing I have to say about it
is that I think it's a miracle. It is the
most beautifully put together, beautifully written story about a guy
Dominic salt is his name. His wife died and he
and his three children are now living on a remote
island call Salt Water, which is somewhere between Tasmania and Antarctica.

(01:54:12):
And they are responsible there as custodians of the world's
largest seed bank. But the seed bank is imperiled because,
as you know, the weather and the climate are changing,
and one day there is a very bad storm and
a woman is washed up on the shore. But of course,
because they're so remote, she can't possibly have just been passing.
She must have been intent on getting to that island,

(01:54:33):
which indeed she was. And as she comes to and
joins them and they house her, show her hospitality, but
clearly she's looking for something, and clearly there are things
that they don't want her to find out.

Speaker 4 (01:54:48):
And it's so well done you can just feel that isolation,
and then you can feel it being just their sort
of day to day, the way they function being interrupted
by this strange and the depth of character these three
kids are extraordinary, particularly the youngest one. It's one of
those you just say, it's.

Speaker 14 (01:55:07):
A joy to read.

Speaker 4 (01:55:08):
So is it because of the way she writes, all
the way the story unfolds, or the story itself.

Speaker 10 (01:55:13):
Or all of that?

Speaker 25 (01:55:13):
Is that just what everything? Sometimes you say a book
is character driven or plot driven. She's nailed all of it.
She's got the location, she's got the people, she's got
the intrigue. It's wonderful.

Speaker 8 (01:55:24):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (01:55:25):
Wild Dark Shaw is the name of that book by
Charlotte McConaughey, and also we spoke about Broken Country by
Claire Leslie Hall.

Speaker 8 (01:55:33):
A couple of.

Speaker 4 (01:55:33):
Goodies there, Joan, Thank you, welcome to see you next week.

Speaker 1 (01:55:36):
The Sunday Session Full show podcast on iHeartRadio powered by
News Talk ZB.

Speaker 4 (01:55:44):
Thank you so much for joining us this morning on
the Sunday Session. Thank you to Kerrie for producing the show.
Jason Pine is up next with an action packed weekend
sports show for you. Joining me next weekend in the studio.
Ben Elton on his expanded Authentic Stupid Stupidity New Zealand tour.
And we also have Jojo Moyes. She's going to be

(01:56:05):
with us to about her latest book, We All Live Here.
We're going to finish with some music from She Had.
They Had. They been playing in Auckland Fridays, maybe Thursday
and Friday nights.

Speaker 14 (01:56:18):
Saturday.

Speaker 4 (01:56:18):
They had their last e performances together at home Grown
in Wellington, So going to leave you a lot of
what she had. See you next week.

Speaker 1 (01:56:56):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks They'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio

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