Full Show Podcast: 29 September 2024

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

Speaker 2 (00:13):
It's Sunday. You know what that means.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and Wikeles for
the best selection of grape reeds use Talks EDB.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Good morning, welcome to the Sunday Session. I'm Francesca Rudkin,
with you until midday. It is seven past nine, which
might surprise you because of course daylight saving has kicked
in this morning. My advice just ignore it. Unless you
have little kids that it's annoying for a few weeks,
but the reast of us just need to ignore it.
The time is the time. Don't focus on it, otherwise

(00:49):
it all becomes thing. Just keep moving and that's what
we're going to do here today on the show. Gina
Chick joins me in the studio. Gina was the oldest
contestant on the TV series Alone Australia and one of
the most interesting. She won the series surviving sixty seven
days in the time tas Manian wilderness in winter, and
would have lasted longer if she'd been allowed. Gina's journey

(01:11):
has encouraged many conversations about our connection to nature, how
we grieve, rising above tragedy and ageism. Her story is
incredible and she shares it with us. After ten, Hollywood
star Elizabeth Banks appears in a new Keywi film that's
called a Mistake, and it is out on October tenth.
The film delves into the complexity of our healthcare system
through the personal lens of a surgical error. It's a

(01:33):
great flick. It's thought provoking, a dark drama, superbly acted,
and its writer and director, Christine Jeff's is with us
after eleven this morning, and as always, you're most welcome
to text me anytime throughout the morning. On ninety two, ninety.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Two the Sunday Session.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
So over the past nine weeks, the media and many
in the country have been fixated on a court case
taking place in Auckland. I am, of course, talking about
the trial of Philip Pulkinghorn, a wealthy retired eye surgeon
with a desire for methanmphetamine sex workers Quirky Socks, who
was accused of murdering his wife, Pauline Hannah. He was
found not guilty on Monday. The court case is over,

(02:14):
thank goodness. I understand the media and public interest in
this case due to its unique and scandless nature, but
I wish they'd been less salivating over it. A woman
is dead, her personal life has been forensically picked apart,
discussed and judged, sometimes respectfully, often not. The defense couldn't
even call her by the name she went by, Pauline Hannah,

(02:36):
referring to her as Missus Pulkinghorn. And now it's all
going to be rehashed in a three part documentary series
funded by New Zealand, on air and screening at some
point on three now. I don't know what this documentary
series will deliver or reveal, or who it will feature,
but I hope it is doing more than just capitalizing
on a trial because it captured the nation's attention. True

(03:00):
crime is a fascinating genre, whether it's a podcast, a
documentary or a book. We endlessly intrigued by what drives
people to do bad things and how they're treated by
the law and justice system. But there is a fine
line between examining the facts and revealing something meaningful and
preying on a victim's tragedy for entertainment's sake. I hope

(03:22):
there is no rush to release this documentary series. It
needs to add for the context and reveal more than
what has thoroughly been covered in the media already. There
is still a coronial inquest to come, which will no
doubt add to the conversation. Timing is also an issue.
Respect must be shown to the victim and grieving family
and friends who will still be coming to terms with

(03:43):
this verdict. There is a place for true crime documentaries.
They can be a powerful way to tell cautionary tales
in question our justice system and treatment of victims. The
Lie the Murder of Grace Melane, currently screening on Netflix,
is an excellent example of this. It's a must see.
The documentary takes us behind the scenes with footage of

(04:05):
the police investigation, reveals the deluded lies of the accused,
examines the way the victim was represented in court, and
demands the end of the rough sex defense. It is
a true crime story that focuses on the facts, adds
context to the story, and reveals new information through its interviews.
Most importantly, it was made with the blessing of Grace's mother.

(04:27):
I hope Pauling Hannah's family are given the same consideration
with this new documentary series. Regardless of whether you feel
justice has been served or not, Pauline Hannah deserves to
rest in peace.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
The Sunday Session.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yeah, so I could do without this documentary series. I
think we've had enough and that there needs to be
a little bit of time before the series comes out.
How do you feel about it? And are you happy
that New Zealand on Air has funded it? Text me
on ninety two ninety two right up next? Speed limits
are on the rise again? Is this a good idea
or not? You're with News Talks he'd be It is
nine to eleven.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Keep It's simple.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
It's Sunday Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and Wiggles for
the last selection of Graveryles News.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Talk z ENV.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
Good to have you with us now. The government has
signed off on new speed limit rules, reversing blanket speed
limit reductions, so but July first next year. Reduced variable
speed limits will operate outside schools during pack up and
drop off times, and motorists will be able to drive
at up to one hundred and twenty kilimeters per hour
on roads of national significance. But earlier this month, road

(05:35):
safety experts pend An urgent open letter to the Prime
Minister and Minister of Transport voicing serious concerns about these
changes to speed rules. Co author of that letter and
a former Chief Science Advisor to the Minister of Transport,
Professor Simon Kingham, joins me. Now, thanks for your time
this morning, Simon, Good morning.

Speaker 4 (05:55):
Good morning, fantastica. I've got them.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
Michel, Hey, you opposed the draft. What do you make
of the changes that have been announced.

Speaker 4 (06:03):
I'm disappointed because they are completely concry to all the
evidence about health, safety, well being, emissions and all sorts
of other things. But unfortunately not surprised because the Minister
hasn't shown any apparent interest in science and the evidence.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
What kind of consequence do you see these changes?

Speaker 4 (06:21):
He then, well, we will expect and we will see.
I'm fairly confident, unfortunately, very sadly, an increase in number
of people dying on the roads. We will see an
increase in green husk gas emissions. We'll see an increase
in air pollution, and that fills two thousand people a year,
so that will go up. We'll see a decrease in
people walking and cycling because it won't feel us safe

(06:42):
on the streets. And other benefits, and we won't actually
see many productivity savings and time savings, as the minister
is telling us, because they don't really exist to any degree.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
Oh it's going to say that, how do we how
do we measure that will changes improve traffic flows?

Speaker 4 (06:59):
Well, they don't really because there's two there's two parts
to it. There's the the speed limits on state highways
and where it's to do. So, as he said, I
think you will see some time savings, but in cities
you don't really because all it does is you still
have to stop and start it every time you get
to a junction. You still have traffic that's creating the congestion,

(07:20):
and speeding the traffic up doesn't reduce the congestion, so
that you won't see time savings, particularly in the city.
You'll see some at certain times a day when the
roads are very quiet, but generally you won't see those
time savings. And time savings and productivity aren't the same
as well. So you're getting home in the evening from
work faster, it doesn't lead to more productivity. It just

(07:41):
means you probably not you personally, but it probably means
that people have more time checking Facebook or Instagram. The
productivity savings are relatively small to a relatively small number
of people.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
Simon. We know that there's a lot of things that
contribute to our road toll, from the state of our cars,
to human era, to the way we drive, to the
state of our roads and things like that. But the
one thing we do know is that the fast and
I'm sorry this is very crude, but the faster you
go the bigger than me.

Speaker 4 (08:07):
Absolutely. And that's the sad thing is it is absolutely
very clear from all around the world. But that's the case.
And we know, for instance, in cities if your hits
very sadly, if you're hit by a vehicle going thirty,
you've got to have a ninety percent chance of surviving.
If that vehicle's driving at fifty, it's around ten percent.
So that drop from fifty to thirty is huge and

(08:28):
really interesting to study. Someone's just reviewed a number of
cities in Europe where they compared before and after fifty
went down to thirty k and they reviewed forty cities
and they saw twenty three percent dropping crashes thirty nearly
forty percent drop inspitalities and injuries, so dramatic drops when
you reduce speed limits in cities.

Speaker 3 (08:46):
And if we look at the roads of national significance,
if we're allowed to drive up to one hundred and
twenty kilometers on those roads, does building beta roads justify
increasing speed limits.

Speaker 4 (08:57):
Well, if you're going to increase the speed limits, you
have to build you have to make the road safe,
and that means things like median barriers, and a lot
of our roads aren't. But it's a very expensive way
to improve productivity. It's a very expensive way to make
people feel safer. And we're a small country of just
over five million people, so we don't have the same
level of tax as some of the other countries that

(09:18):
have you know, Germany, for instance, people talk about they
have speed limits of one hundred and twenty or no
speed limits in some cases, but they have sixty million
people paying tax to maintain those roads. So it's a
case of cutting our cloth accordingly, and low speed limits
is a really cheap way to make it safer, and
it doesn't, as I said, it doesn't lead to these
great improvements in productivity.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
I'm probably giving away a little bit of my driving
habits here, Simon, but you know, often if the speed
limits one hundred is a possibility. I might go up
to one hundred and five. If it's one hundred and ten,
I might go a couple of kilometers over. But when
we're talking about one and twenty and we're adding a
few more kilometers per hour, that could potentially keep me
something that I think.

Speaker 4 (10:00):
So I think you're right. We know that we don't
de bay speed limits, but you bring them down, and
we know that corresponding there are reductions in speed. So, yes,
you're right. Making a speed in one hundred doesn't mean
everyone drives a hundred, but it means that it's lower
than if the speed limits one hundred and twenty, and
you're absolutely right, it will it will be messy. The
other thing about productivity, about the speed limits on the
state highways, my understanding is that the trucks are still

(10:23):
going ninety, their speed limit will stay ninety, and this
is being talked about, and of course they are the
ones for whom those productivity benefits. True, but they're actually
not the ones who get the benefit of the higher
speed limits. Ironically, of course, is if you and I
are driving one hundred and twenty, we're overtaking the trucks.
So when we then get to the town or the
destination the trucks so a see a little bit further
back in in the queue, so ironically it may actually

(10:45):
make them less productive.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
Very good point the Minister of Transports is it's police
breath testing, not lower speed limits that is bringing down
the row toll. Would you agree with that? Would that
be the case?

Speaker 4 (10:56):
Well, the more breath testing is going to help as well,
but it's certainly not going to account for the twenty
percent reduction. So this year, it's really interesting statistic when
we've implemented some of these speed limit reduction in the
last twelve months, eighteen months, the number of people who
died on the road to date this year is twenty
percent down from last year. And I think he's saying
it's all because of breath testing. It doesn't. It's inconsistent

(11:18):
with the science. He's almost saying that the lower speed
limits in this country have had no difference, despite everywhere
else in the world they've seen the reductions are up
to forty percent in death and serious injuries. So he
I don't know if he's got the evidence to support that.
I think someone will need to actually analyze those savings.
But the reality is that I think it's highly unlikely
that it's all because of breath testing when the rest

(11:40):
of the world has demonstrated significant reductions in death and
serious injuries from the lower speed limits. Can I add
one other point as quickly he talks about blanket speed
limit Under Labor, there weren't any blanket speed limit reductions.
They were targeted speed limits based on the New Zealand
Transport Agency identifying a safe speed on streets, and then
they all went through public consultation. I'm sure not everyone

(12:02):
agrees with it, but they were targeted speed limits. The
only blanket speed limits Shane is the one he's now proposing,
and he's not asking for benefit cost analysis, about benefit
cost ratio analysis or anything else. He's literally blanket increasing
speed limits. So I think we're going to be a
little bit careful when we use the word blanket speed
limit changes because there haven't been any, but they are
about to be them.

Speaker 3 (12:21):
What effect does this have on a local level? I mean,
should these decisions be left for local councils and communities
to make about it, especially when it comes to things
like schools.

Speaker 4 (12:30):
And totally of course in the in urban areas. I mean,
the government talks about empowering local councils to make local decisions,
and local councils have been making these decisions. They've been
given permission about the central government previously to low us
speed limits, and locally they've done that and absolutely, and
now he's coming in saying, actually, the central government is

(12:51):
deciding what speed it is safe to drive in your community,
despite the fact that locally this work's been done. So
it is slightly strange and slightly bizarre. And I think
for speed limits, absolutely it should be the local community
who decide it is.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
A good thing to have the reduced speed limit to
pick up and drop off times around school. So how
much difference will it make to extend the limits beyond
those peak times.

Speaker 4 (13:14):
Well, I think I've read recently about some research in
Auckland or where they analyzed the f talent all the
injuries to children or children being in crashes, and they
actually found eighty five percent of them. We're outside school
hours because kids still go to school, they still go
to the school playing field, they still wander around and
talk to their mates. So I think the evidence is
that just having them at school hours doesn't really I mean, yes,

(13:36):
it's course it's good, but it's not going to deliver
all the benefits of having them much wider, because you
still want our children to be able to go and
see their friends. We still want them to go to
the school playing field and play. And the evidence is
that the accidents aren't all just in those hours around
school time. The other thing is it can get confusing.
People have got to sort of check what time is it,
is it school holidays?

Speaker 5 (13:56):
What speeds do I go?

Speaker 4 (13:58):
You then ideally you need proper variable speed signs, and
I think the Minister exit knowledge they're too expensive, so
we are just kind of guessing when we're near the school,
we get what time it is. We're guessing whether it's
the school holidays, as against us having a much wider
lower speed limit around schools or even in slow communities
where where people aren't driving to desk to get to

(14:18):
through the communities to places. They're going to their homes.
They're going to the places where the kids want to
be playing out on the street and people want to
be talking to their neighbors.

Speaker 3 (14:26):
Thank you so much, Simon for your time this morning
and your thoughts. That was Professor Simon Kingham there who
was the former Chief Science Advisor to the Minister of Transport.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
It's the Sunday session.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
You're right. The All Blacks ended their Wellington drought last
night with a thirty three thirteen win over the Wallabies,
bringing the Rugby Championship to a close. Elliott Smith was
our man on the ground making the call. Well, we
were going to play a little bit of Earliot because
he does such a fantastic job of his commentary.

Speaker 6 (14:59):
Here we go right about fines.

Speaker 7 (15:02):
Mackenzie takes it over the tax line, the capital per
things and the All Blacks. When Sampaign's one hundreds, it's
final on home soil. TJ Peninaa's final on home soil,
thirty three thirteen over the Wallabes at sky Stadium.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
There he is and Elliott joins me.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
Now, good morning, Elliott, Good morning, Francisco.

Speaker 3 (15:26):
I said thirty four to twenty in the family sweep steak.
I was pretty close. Yeah, I think it was. I
haven't seen any money yet though, but the All Blacks
will be very pleased with the score.

Speaker 8 (15:39):
They will be.

Speaker 5 (15:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (15:39):
Look, it wasn't entirely perfect, but it was dominant. I
think in the All Blacks wanted that they didn't allow
the Wallabies really back into the game once they took
the lead just on halftime and they had to earn it.
The Wallabies came out in the early stages of the
first half and really put some pressure on the All Blacks.
Could well have been fourteen mill up if they try

(16:01):
gets grounded early in the first spell when it went
into the All Blacks end gold when Voteen Barres went
past them, so the Wallabes could have been up fourteen nil.
They wound and the All Blacks they got themselves into
the game, took the lead on half time with a
big decision not to take the shot at goal but
instead go for the hit shot has Scott Barrett caught
at post match last night and take the lead nineteen

(16:22):
thirteen into the break and then came out after halftime
knowing they hadn't scored points in the closing twenty minutes
of a match in the Rugby Championship to this point.
They had a couple more in the second spell and
didn't really allow Australia back into the game, maybe barring
the last sort of five to ten minutes or thereabouts
when Australia put on some pressure, but the game was
done by that point and the All Blacks are pretty

(16:44):
happy with that, realizing that they can still be better.
But it was a dominant performance, if not entirely clinical.

Speaker 3 (16:51):
The difference or maybe the improvements that I saw was
that the All Blacks were a lot more patient with
the ball and discipline seemed to be better under control.

Speaker 8 (16:58):
Absolutely. Look, they didn't try to score on first phase,
second phase. They were willing to build some pressure and
spend time the twenty two and believe that if they
spend time in the twenty two then Australia would concede
penalties or eventually the dam would break and to be
able to score points, you know, and slip through that
Australian defense. And I think that was the key, having

(17:20):
the trust that they don't need to score from wide out,
they can put some pressure on the twenty two and
get there their points that way was you know, a
big step forward.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Four.

Speaker 8 (17:31):
The All Blacks discipline got better as the game went
onal bit camb Clarke's lake yellow cards. I think at
half time they had considered eight penalties to four. That
got better as the second half went on. Australia can
sidered a few more and it evens up, so they
soaked up pressure. I think you look at that first
half and Australia made fifty tackles roughly and the All

(17:51):
Blacks had made one hundred. By full time, both sides
had made in the vicinity of one hundred and seventy,
so it forced Australia to make in one hundred and
twenty second half tackles and put some pressure on that way.
So discipline, I think Coloradison did say postmatch, still something
they're working on and they need to get it right
with those tests to come up in the Northern Hemisphere.

(18:11):
But he was pleased with a step forward last night.

Speaker 9 (18:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
How would you sum up the All Blacks Rugby Championship.
Do you think that Razor has a good idea now?
Who is starting fifteen ers?

Speaker 8 (18:21):
I think so. Yeah, I think it's all coming together
a bit more maybe than at the start of the championship.
And yeah, the lessons have been learned in South Africa.
We've seen some players come in, you know Wallace and CD.
He's now had three starts at blind side flanker after
Ethan Blackett had got injured and he's been probably one
of the All Blacks best on those three occasions he

(18:41):
is no longer promising, he's delivering and it's special to
see him in there. Tuopo y again and the second
row is coming and taking his chance with Patrick toy
for Lotsu out injured, and you know some of those
other changes as well. Will Jordan had his best test
at fullback last night, so it looks like he'll stick
in that position in the long term. Still a question

(19:03):
mark though at ten, with Voden Barrack getting his foot
in a couple of years in that position last night
and Damian McKenzie coming off the bench, so I think
that's a live conversation. Is the All Black head to
their five tests on the end of the year tour
just around who the first choice ten is. But you're
beginning to see some of the parts fall into place
around it. The word trending in the right direction, the

(19:25):
words trending in the right direction phill, they've been used
by the All Blacks and after that tough tour of
South Africa, it hasn't always been perfect for the All
Blacks in the last few weeks, but there's the setings
internally that they are hitting in the right direction as
they contemplate these five tests on the end of year tours.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
Thank you so much, Elliott, appreciate your thoughts this morning.
The politics is next. It is twenty nine past nine.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks AB.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
Joining me now to talk politics is New Zealand Herald
Political editor Clear Trevet.

Speaker 10 (20:03):
Good morning, Claire, Good morning Antesca.

Speaker 3 (20:07):
Andrew Costa the switch from help being the top cop
to social investment. He's spoken quite a bit this week
about his job and he hasn't shied away from his
expressing his views that politics, you know, really shouldn't interfere
with what is a politically neutral role.

Speaker 10 (20:27):
Yeah, that's well an interesting ish development. I think it's
it's probably worked out well for both sides, really well
for all sides. I'm I'm not sure who was kind
of happy about it, whether it was Nichola Willis who
now gets Andrew Costa head in her Social Investment agency,
or Mike Mitchell, who now has Andrew Coster stepping down
five or six months earlier and just ahead of those

(20:49):
new ganglors coming into effect when he will want to
see the police, you know, enforcing those quite vigorously and
being ready to enforce them, so it's probably quite an
ideal situation for all of them. I did interview Andrew
cost for this week. He's quite a thoughtful guy, and

(21:10):
he did talk about the politicization of his role. He
didn't really bother hiding that he felt he had been politicized,
but he didn't. He didn't because he's the police commissioner
kind of criticize anyone specifically for it. He pointed out, well,
he did. He pointed out it was kind of the

(21:30):
nature of Italy. It probably did make his life quite
difficult at times, but he pointed out it's the nature
of his job, in particular when you have an election
campaign which is so focused around law and order issues
and crime and stuff, and there was a big chasm
between national and labor on crime at the time, and
you remember he was it is technically, well, it is

(21:53):
not technically by law. He has operational independence and the
police commissioner. He just kind of said it would be
a shame if the police commissioner's role became more or
less a political appointment and was always seen as one
that changed when the government changed, because it should be
someone who can operate at their independent level and kind

(22:14):
of have the support of both sides. Now. I think
mart Mitchell and Andrew cost did try their best to
kind of mustle along in a productive fashion after the
change of government, but it was always clear it was
a fairly awkward relationship. So social investment is right up

(22:34):
his alley really, I mean, in that interview there's a
few observations he made about the drivers of crime really
which didn't get the focus they did because of the
drama of the night. Like he talked about things like
the cost of living, for example, and the economic crunch
and the impact that that has on crime levels that
police are seeing. And he is also a big advocate

(22:55):
of early intervention and has been throughout his tenure as
Police Commissioner, and really focusing on preventing crime in the
first place as much as dealing with it the other end.
He also made points about the police being increasingly stretched
to sin because they had to be dealing with what
you might describe as kind of social problems rather than

(23:18):
crime itself. That's kind of starting to be addressed with
the shift over the mental health callouts in cases where
there isn't any threat to public safety or anyone's personal safety.
So yeah, he's quite a thoughtful guy. And the Social
Investment Agency, I mean, he goes from leading an organization

(23:39):
of about fourteen thousand to forty people. But it's something
that he can kind of really make his own because
it's relatively new in the way that nation was doing it.
So yeah, probably an idea outcome all around, really and
not mature gets what whoever has preferred Police Commissioner is
in to muscle along the response on gangs.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
Clear we've got a recess in the House this week,
but we've also got the last few days the government's
quarterly plan. What's expected to come.

Speaker 10 (24:12):
We do and that is literally due to when tomorrow.
And the one big item that has not yet been
ticked off. This is the quarterly plan that Crystal Floodson
produces every three months with a kind of list of
things that they're going to do in that three month period.
It's a kind of tidy way to do it. It does
sometimes lead to things being rushed quite a lot just

(24:32):
for the sake of getting them done in that period.
But the one thing that's left is the government response
to the review on school property. And you might recall
that at the beginning of the year at Christanford said, right,
I've had a look at all the school property things.
There's massive cost blowouts, there's high spec designs for schools,

(24:54):
it's all costing too much and it's basically a shambles.
So she reviewed, got the Ministry to review about three
hundred and fifty specific school projects that were reconstruction. About
one hundred of them got put on hold completely and
others gorut rescoped. And then she commissioned a ministerial inquiry
which is headed by former minister and her former boss

(25:19):
actually Mary McCully, and to look at the way that
the Ministry of Education was handling school property basically in
their commissioning and construction and stuff. So that landed on
her desk. The recommendations of that landed on her desk
about almost three months ago now, I think, and their
government's expected to kind of make its final decisions on

(25:41):
it and hopefully unveil them next week, I think, because
it's the last thing on the ticklist. So I am
told that that review makes quite grim reading and it
comes at a time when the government's under real pressure
when it comes to capital spending, which is the spending
on things like buildings For example, last week you saw

(26:02):
them more or less put the Dunedin hospital build under
review again because of the massive cost blowouts there. It's
still trying to decide what to do with the ferry
between the North and South Island. And then you've got
the kind of school property saying and at the same
time they're looking at during a business case on that
Waikato Medical School. So yeah for one, because the interim

(26:26):
one wasn't convincing enough. So yeah, it's a lot of
not much money and a lot of things to spend
it on. So keep an eye out for that school
property review and what the government's going to do around
that for tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
Thanks so much, Claire, nice to talk to you. And
speaking of infrastructure, thirty five thousand people talk to the
streets of Dunedin use today to protest those proposed downgrades
to the city's new hospital project. We're going to get
the nurse's perspective on that next year. On News Talks
v it is twenty one to.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Ten Sunday with Style the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudgin
and Windles.

Speaker 2 (27:02):
For the best selection of great Reeds news talks. Hevvy right.

Speaker 3 (27:05):
Most of you you are very happy with the changes
to the speed limits. We'll get to that shortly and
your texts. Thank you for those yes that are though,
thousands across the South Island marched to protest the government
over its handling of the health system crisis. Dunedan saw
on nearly thirty five thousand take to the streets to
protest proposed downgrades to the city's new hospital project. Meanwhile,

(27:26):
streets on the West Coast saw silent crowds gathered to
highlight problems the region is facing, including a GP shortage
and cuts to after our services. The government is being
accused of broken promises and downscaling of critical facilities. Frontline
health staff were out in force and support of the marches.
New Zealand Nurses Association president and Daniels was interned and

(27:47):
she joins me now Cure, good morning, Good morning. Were
you surprised by the turnout yesterday?

Speaker 11 (27:54):
No, I wasn't, because I know that some said that
they were overwhelmed, but I actually expected it. The depth
of feeling, the anger that the people in this region
and probably throughout New Zealand about the state of our
health system and services is absolutely palpable, and everybody who

(28:22):
turned up and many who couldn't and wanted to be there,
made it very very clear that this government is failing
us in our health system and our health services, and
the building, the hospital, new build just seemed to bring
all of that anger and angst of all the issues

(28:44):
to do with the health system to ahead. And they
made themselves very clear.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
And it's been a discussion, you know, an issue which
has just been going on for so long. Where is
the new build or the hospital currently at well?

Speaker 11 (28:58):
I understand all the foundations, polls or whatever they might
be have been completed and tapped so that they don't
get filled with water and various other things, so you know,
the process is well and truly underway. And the outpatient building,

(29:20):
I understand, will be opened in twenty twenty six. So
you know, it is just absolute craziness that they don't
continue to go ahead with it. And the idea that
there's going to be a three billion dollar cost blowout
with absolutely no substance behind that statement is just unacceptable.

(29:44):
One of the speakers, in fact, one of the people
who actually lead this project, Pete Hodgson, said very very
clearly that the RUST report said in their first recommendation
that project really needed to continue. It didn't say any
shape or form that it should be stopped. So, you know,

(30:09):
I think there's a lot of misinformation coming out of
the government because they want to do other things. But
that's on them. The decision was made in twenty and
eighteen at the two options that they put on the
table last week were unacceptable way back then, so we
can't revisit them. We need to go ahead and finish

(30:32):
this project as planned.

Speaker 3 (30:35):
Were the aspirations for this hospital too high? Do you think, Anne?

Speaker 11 (30:39):
Sorry say again, were.

Speaker 3 (30:41):
There aspirations for this hospital too high?

Speaker 11 (30:44):
No? No, In fact, they were well and truly future proofed.
This was an investment into the future so that the
hospital could support an aging population. And I suppose a
growth in population down here in the bottom of the
South because of course Queen's Town and the Moniker will

(31:08):
and truly have a huge population growth. The South Island
is the place to be because people realize that the
lifestyle down here is wonderful. And no, I don't think
it was too much. The clinicians, there were five hundred
clinicians involved in the planning of this building. This building

(31:34):
was going to be fit purpose and future proofed. So no,
I don't think there was too much aspiration there.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
When it comes to the nurses, where would it concern
you to see cuts?

Speaker 11 (31:47):
Well, it's very very simple. Right now, we don't have
enough resource beds in the old Political Services block to
actually support the growing need from the Otago regional population.
And if you actually build a hospital that has got

(32:09):
fewer beds, you are actually set up to fail, will
fail on day one pretty much. So that's not okay.
It means that the patients will wait, that bed block
will be a reality of our lives every day, and
that people will suffer and die. We won't be able
to provide the planned out patients and surgery here that

(32:36):
needs to happen, and that is preventative care that is
here that will stop people getting sicker or will be
in constant pain. No, none of this is okay. We're
talking about a building in terms of care. The nurses
and the doctors that provide that care need the facilities

(32:58):
to actually do it, and do it well, and do
it in a time and manner so that the suffering
isn't ongoing.

Speaker 3 (33:05):
And it sounds like he did a bit of singing
and chanting yesterday. You need to go and look after
that voice.

Speaker 11 (33:12):
Thank you. Yes I did lose my voice.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
Yes, well, we appreciate we all will let you go.
We appreciate you giving us some of your time this morning.
That was New Zealand Nurses Association president and Daniels. They're
keen to hear from you, especially if you're and need
and how you feel about this. I absolutely understand why
there were so many people on the street yesterday. It
is twelve to ten.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
All of the big names all wrong.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
My cousky breakfast confirmation that Liam Lawson has made it
to F one in his own seat, his own drive.

Speaker 12 (33:43):
Liam Lawson is Willius.

Speaker 6 (33:44):
I assume you have some idea of how thrilled we
all are for you.

Speaker 13 (33:47):
All we can do is wish you the very very
best and think it's just magnificent news.

Speaker 14 (33:52):
Thank you, and see everybody listening, and see everybody who's
stuck with me for all the years leading up to this,
thank you, because obviously it's a huge journey and for me,
this is what I've dreamed of doing since I was
a kid. So obviously now we have another amount of
the Clive going into the season and hopefully driving next
year as well.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
Hopefully this is the start of fall onto me.

Speaker 14 (34:07):
But I just want to say thanks everybody, because I
appreciate it a lot.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
Back tomorrow at six am the Mic Hosking Breakfast with
the Jaguars, past Us Talk zed B.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
Relax, it's still the weekend.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca, Rudgin and Wiggles for
the best selection of great Breeds use Talk ZEDB.

Speaker 7 (34:26):
Right.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
I completely agree with this text I received. There's always
going to be a cost blowout. The hospital is no
different to other major projects once just got a look
at Auckland crl Into Islander Services, roads etc. As much
as I would like to see everything be completed, where
where is the funding coming from for these blowouts? We
have cancer, drugs, et cetera. The list goes on and
on on. I completely agree with the about says there
was always going to be a cost blowout. I don't

(34:46):
know why that's a surprise to anybody, especially considering how
long this project has carried on. When it comes to
the speed limits, most of you were very excited about
the changes which are coming. Francesca, the consultation that you're
my guest earlier in the show talked about was a joke.
It was a box ticking to push through the decision
for lower speed limits that had already been made. He's
using statistics and evidence that suits its point of view.

(35:08):
Bring on the reversal of the ridiculously lower speeds. That
was from Barry Another heir, What planet does this guy on?
You drive between Nelson and Blenham. The productivity increase for
truck companies will be huge, but not, as Simon said,
if it is still ninety ninety kilometers per hour for
a truck. Most people drive to the conditions. Another text reads,

(35:29):
and should not be dictated to in order to meet
the needs of idiots. The lower speeds around schools is sensible.
Motorways in other countries are open speed limits. Thank you
very much for those text years. I must say they
were all in favor of putting the speed limits back,
so thank you very much for that. You with News
TALKSIB it is seven to ten, Keep it simple.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
It's Sunday the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudgat and Wiggles
for the best selection of grave relies.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
News Talks v Hey.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
A new episode of The Little Things was released Yesterday morning.
This week we're talking about heart health. It's generally seen
as a male issue, but cardiak issues are the leading
cause of death for all people in New Zealand, including women.
And even though our podcast is that I Do with
my friend Luis Area is generally sort of female skewed,
this is one for both men and women. We talk

(36:21):
about our hearts, how we should check them, the risks,
the risks that we can control with heart health, the
ones that we can't, what you do about that. We
talk about when and how to get a heart check
and things like that, so it's really worth a listen.
Doctor Kara Wazzi Witch, who was a leading cardiologist here
in New Zealand, is our guest and she's really fascinating

(36:42):
about how we need to be more proactive and look
after our hearts. Even if you think you've got no problems,
you need to look after that heart. So it's a
great conversation with her. Now, Gina Chick became a household
name when she won Alone Australia. She's a good mate
a few Jackmans. She's had a colorful life. It's been
one of struggling to fit in and finding her place

(37:02):
in the world, along with battling cancer, surviving the loss
of her daughter she was three when she passed away.
Throughout all this, Gena has learned a lot about life
and living and she joins me next to tell us
all about it. We're going to finish with a little
bit of music from Lanadale Ray. Congratulations to Lanadale Ray.
She married her alligator tour guide boyfriend yesterday. Isn't that
good for a headline? Yeah, they got married in the

(37:26):
same bio where Druby apparently operates his swamp boat tours.
So we don't know how long relationship has been going.
Apparently it's quite new, but best elect to both of them.
This is lanadal Ray.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
Welcome to the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and Wiggles
for the best selection of great reads.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
Used you're with the Sunday Session. I'm Francisca ruccom with
you until midday. Good to have you with us. When
Gina Check won the inaugural Alone Australia competition, she showed
just how tough she is. For those of you unfamiliar,

(38:08):
Gina survived alone in the Tasmanian wilderness in winter for
sixty seven days with barely any supplies and no food
outside of the competition. Gina hasn't had an easy life.
There's been two cancer battles, the loss of her three
year old daughter, and a young life lived feeling like
she just didn't quite fit in. Gina has shared has

(38:29):
shared her story in a new book. It's called We
Are the Stars And Gena Chick is in the country
and joins me. Now, Hi, Gena, Hi, Francesca. So nice
to meet you. It's so lovely to be here.

Speaker 15 (38:40):
And I've got to say, alta roa, what a welcome?

Speaker 3 (38:43):
Oh you loving us?

Speaker 15 (38:44):
Oh my god, it's so good.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
Have you had any time to hit the wilderness?

Speaker 15 (38:48):
No, not this time, but I have spent time here before. Yeah,
and I do love it. Love the humans too.

Speaker 3 (38:54):
So much to talk to you about. Let's start showy
a little bit. At the beginning. You had this aching
loneliness growing up. You talk about not understanding human ways,
being told that you were just tumor for people.

Speaker 16 (39:07):
What was that like for you as a little kid.
It was confusing, partly because when I was at home,
I had this amazing family life, and you know, I
was completely accepted and it was just normal to be
odd in my family, so then to go to school
and have a completely different experience was confusing and strange.

(39:31):
I felt like I understood the language of nature really well.
I never felt separate from nature. I never felt like
I was gena, and then there was the bush. It
was more like nature was me and I was it.
And then I'd go to school and find that everybody
else was a human and I didn't quite know how
to do that.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
So how did you cope with that loneliness? Obviously you
had that connection with nature and the love of birds
and things and animals, but how did you deal with
that loneliness? How did you get through school? Books were
a huge part of it.

Speaker 16 (40:07):
When I was six years old, a family friend gave
me The Jungle Book by Radyard Kipling, and he said,
you know, sometimes books understand us better than people, and
I think this book is going to understand you very well.

Speaker 15 (40:23):
And he was right.

Speaker 16 (40:24):
I read The Jungle Book and my whole world changed.
The Gena who started reading the book wasn't the Gena
who finished it. Like, my entire internal reality had changed.
My view of the world had changed, and I was
so enamored of the reality of the Jungle Book. I
wanted it to be a part of me, and I
wanted those characters to be part of me. So I

(40:47):
tore the corner of pages and ate them because I
wanted to take the story so deeply into myself that it.

Speaker 15 (40:54):
Could never leave. And that began a lifelong love.

Speaker 16 (40:58):
Affair with books and with stories. And I don't even
know how many books I've eaten. But when I was,
when I was at school and things bad, I had
this whole internal reality, in this whole internal life where
the characters of the books were my friends, and they
were my allies, so that, along with nature and music,

(41:19):
they became my touchstones.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
But as you say, you had this incredibly loving and
supportive family, and your mother always said to you, you'll
find your tribe. When did you find your tribe?

Speaker 16 (41:30):
Not until I was really in my twenties and I
went to Sydney to go to university and discovered the
queer scene, or the gay scene.

Speaker 15 (41:38):
At the time, we didn't.

Speaker 16 (41:39):
Even really call it queer. It was just the gay
scene on Oxford Street in Sydney, and back in those days,
it was one of those little slices of time where
everything opened up and the whole place was like Studio
fifty four, And I found that the community, the gay community,

(42:02):
the queer community, they didn't revile me for my bigness
and my strangeness and my creativity.

Speaker 15 (42:09):
They loved it.

Speaker 16 (42:10):
And it meant that I could express those.

Speaker 15 (42:13):
Parts of mysel myselves.

Speaker 16 (42:15):
I could express those parts of myself that historically I
had been.

Speaker 15 (42:21):
Sort of outcast for.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
It must have been a huge relief because it takes
so much energy to try and fitter and doesn't it.

Speaker 16 (42:27):
Yeah, And I've never been any good at it, Like,
I can't, I can't fake it.

Speaker 15 (42:32):
I am the world's worst.

Speaker 16 (42:33):
Actor, which I discovered when I tried, when I had
my first foray into presenting. I can't do a script.
I can't play someone else. I can't pretend like you
can see what's going on on my face.

Speaker 3 (42:45):
Absolutely, there is.

Speaker 16 (42:46):
No filter and there's no way of hiding it. So
for me that trying to fit in part was just
strange at school and I was very bad at it.
And then to get to the Yeah, to get to
the queer scene, the gay scene in Sydney, I didn't
have to pretend.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
And you've got such a gorgeous story about hitting too.
Was it university and pretty much on the first day
of your course meeting Hugh Jackman. And you have this
beautiful friendship which has lasted for decades, and he was
someone that got you.

Speaker 16 (43:17):
Yeah, yeah, he's great. So it's been thirty seven years now,
I think we've been friends and yeah, he's just always
been there.

Speaker 3 (43:28):
The prologue to the book, it talks about what your
daughter has taught you and what you learned from her
life and her death and Blazed out of cancer when
she was just three. What did you learn from that?

Speaker 15 (43:40):
Oh?

Speaker 16 (43:41):
Yeah, I've learned so much from Blaze. And I say
that because I have grieved with every part of me,
because I've said yes to every part of that grief,
and because I ask every day what is grief asking
of me? My experience is that grief demands to be felt,

(44:04):
and we live in a culture where we don't have
healthy ceremonies and rituals and tools to be able to
be with grief that our hunter gatherer ancestors have had,
and also that First Nations people have. You know, our
white Western culture has somehow taken grief and put it
in a box and turned the volume down and stuck

(44:24):
it under the bed, and as a result of that,
it's you know, where do we go to learn how
to be with grief? Somehow, because of my whole childhood
and my adulthood of learning how to process my emotions
and looking under every rock in myself for what might

(44:45):
be there, for studying First Nations and indigenous cultures and
also hunter gatherer technologies, it meant that when I lost
my daughter, I didn't turn to the white Western way. Instead,
I connected with a deeper wisdom in my Dna, which
is about ceremony and ritual and is about feeling everything.

(45:07):
And as a result, I can say that even though
the grief was and is huge, I was always just
that little bit bigger. I could always hold it in
my awareness. It was never bigger than me. And as
a result of that, I've been able to let it
change me and grow me so that I can say

(45:29):
that having my daughter was the greatest gift of my life,
but losing her has been the second greatest gift of
my life. And because of losing her, I am bigger
and I am wiser. I'm more compassionate, I'm a much
nicer person. I have more ability to hold, I have
more ability to bring my creativity into the world. So

(45:49):
for me, every step that I take is actually her gift.

Speaker 3 (45:53):
Yeah, such a beautiful place to be and somewhere which
I think so many people want to be after grief.
But I think you're right. I think if we don't
have if people aren't allowed to grieve in their own
way as well, you know, like I think we're even
conscious sometimes of how we grieve and if something might
feel natural to you to want to do, but everyone
else kind of rolls or eyes and goes, well, what's

(46:13):
going on? You know, like it's too much judgment. You've
just got to It's almost about going with your instincts
and going with your gat Is that fair to say?

Speaker 15 (46:20):
I would say that. And the other thing that I.

Speaker 16 (46:21):
Would say is everybody grieves differently, and grief is very,
very selfish. Whatever our grief is, it's really hard to
think of anyone hurting as much as we are, feeling
the same way that we do, or wanting to express
that grief in the same way. So for some people
it's numbness, for some people it's coldness, and then the
people around them are going, why aren't you falling apart?

(46:43):
There's something wrong with you, whereas I just feel like
grief sort of hits our own fingerprint, like the fingerprint
of our heart, the fingerprint of our biology, the fingerprint
of our expression in the world. And however we dance
with it. That is our dance and there are things
to learn from that, but it can be suspect to

(47:03):
the people around us, and I think that's very sad.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
You also had a battle with cancer, and of course
this is when you got pregnant. You had this beautiful,
miracle baby, and then you discovered that you were you
had cancer, and you were advised to terminate the pregnancy,
and you decided not to. How do you make that?
How did you make that decision? Yes, that's an impossible

(47:30):
position to be put in it, absolutely Yeah.

Speaker 16 (47:33):
So I found out I was pregnant at forty, thinking
I could never carry a pregnancy, found out I was pregnant,
and then four days later I found out I had
breast cancer. So it was right at the beginning of
the pregnancy and the doctors said, you must terminate this
pregnancy or.

Speaker 3 (47:48):
You will die.

Speaker 16 (47:49):
I was told that you will die if you.

Speaker 15 (47:51):
Don't terminate this pregnancy.

Speaker 16 (47:52):
And a part of me is just said, no, that's
you can't tell me that this is an absolute. The
thing with statistics in the medical profession is they are
We're given the middle of a bell curve. That's what
we're given with statistics. It's the most likely outcome. It's
from double blind clinical studies, it's from years of medical research,

(48:14):
and here is the average of what you can expect.
And that is how doctors give us advice, which is
what they have to do. But I know that I'm
not on the middle of a bell curve, and so
my initial response was, no, I don't accept this. There
has to be a way. And originally I went through

(48:36):
a whole process of looking for alternative treatments and none
of them worked.

Speaker 15 (48:42):
So at five months I think I had chemo for
three months.

Speaker 16 (48:45):
So there was also the having to come to terms
with if the you know, if the hippie stuff that
I was trying didn't work, the option to save my
life and the life of my daughter was chemo, and
so a lot of my time and my prep went
into preparing myself for that eventuality so that if I
did have to say yes to the chemo, I would

(49:06):
be able to function well and not have side effects.
But I didn't have any side effects apart from losing
my hair, and I didn't even get sick, which this
particular chemo makes everybody sick. So all the stuff I
was doing was really helping.

Speaker 15 (49:23):
And I still had to make that choice.

Speaker 16 (49:27):
And I think there's this beautiful balancing act of all
of the purveyors of medicine are my advisors, Like there's
Western medicine, but there's also a whole bunch of other medicines.
I don't want to ignore the wisdom in any of them,
but ultimately, the choice of the combination that I put

(49:50):
them into, that's my choice, but it's also the consequences
of mine.

Speaker 15 (49:53):
It could have gone the other way. I could not
be here right now, and it just so.

Speaker 16 (49:59):
Happened that I found a path through where I danced
with conventional medicine and I also danced with some more
esoteric flavors.

Speaker 3 (50:06):
So, Gina, when you've been through some of the worst
experiences that life has to offer you, you had to
deal with your cancer, losing your beautiful girl at age three,
and things like that, I imagine when somebody said to you,
would you like to come into the wilderness of Tasmania
on your own. You probably went, you know, not a problem,
that's that's that's great, I'll do that. And of course
you did this for A Lone Australia, which is a

(50:29):
pretty crazy reality show in a sense. You're you're sent
into the wilderness in Tasmania, you've got no food, you're
allowed to take ten survival items with you. It's winter, harsh,
harsh conditions. But you didn't just survive, you thrived.

Speaker 16 (50:46):
I did the other thing about alone that makes it
not even so much conventional reality show.

Speaker 15 (50:52):
It's more of a docu series.

Speaker 16 (50:54):
There's no there's no film cruise, there's no producers. It's
not like they're there. You've got producers sort of stage
directing things. It's not like there's a camera crew dance
on the moss.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
Yeah, yeah, you know.

Speaker 16 (51:06):
It's basically we got dropped out there with ten items
and seventy kilos of camera gear and they're like radio,
you've got a film for five or six hours a day.
We have no control over what you're going to do. Basically,
you're making a documentary, so what story do you want
to tell? And it was beautiful because as soon as
I the producer said that what story do you want

(51:26):
to tell in your documentary. Something landed in me and
and I'd gone from being sort of in this frenzy
of what am I going to what items are going
to take? What are my strategies? How am I going
to survive? To Oh, I get to make a documentary.
I'm a creative, I'm a storyteller. I get to make
a documentary. And suddenly it was the most exciting thing ever.

(51:49):
So part of the thriving for me was.

Speaker 15 (51:52):
That I made a vow of veracity.

Speaker 16 (51:54):
I said, radio, the only way I can do this
is if I tell the truth. I'm not going to
edit myself. I'm not going to second guess myself. I'm
just going to keep the cameras rolling no matter what.
Meant that I would go through the emotional turmoil of
surviving out there, but you would also see me come
out of it and less sbs. They would show that.

(52:17):
Instead of just the drama, they would actually show the
resolution as well. So I was dancing in the moss barefoot,
I was I made friends with a platypus. I was
singing to the fish to call them, and I was
pulling out fish left, right, and center.

Speaker 15 (52:31):
I caught something.

Speaker 16 (52:32):
Like thirty fish and twelve eels and jumped on a
wallabie and you know, ate that for a month, and
I had an experience of the way I describe it
is I died, and I dissolved, and I was regrown
as part of the interconnected web of life, no more
or less important than any bird or bee, or tree

(52:52):
or fish. And what that meant was because I didn't
think I was important, and I had to like challenge
nature or solve the problem of nature.

Speaker 3 (53:01):
I really was, you know.

Speaker 16 (53:03):
Just another tree or just another fish, or just another bird.
It meant that when I needed something, I would ask
and it would come. It was almost like this universe
bush magic would happen. And so yeah, I was out
there for sixty seven days. I was really annoyed when
they came to get me because I wanted to do
ninety and I still had three weeks worth of food.

(53:24):
When they came to get me, I fed Lee lunch.

Speaker 15 (53:26):
So Lee is my ex husband, and he was the
one who turned up to say.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
Surprise, you've won.

Speaker 16 (53:31):
And yeah, when we were packing up, I was feeding
him all the proably.

Speaker 3 (53:34):
Wit, we have to go and get her out because
she will sit here forever and to finish this show.

Speaker 17 (53:40):
They were joking that I.

Speaker 16 (53:41):
Was carving Christmas decorations.

Speaker 15 (53:44):
Oh my god, what are we going to do?

Speaker 3 (53:45):
She's here forever, Oh, Gina. Thank you so much for
the book, for sharing your story, and for coming and
talking to us today. It's been fantastic.

Speaker 15 (53:53):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 16 (53:55):
And I've just got to say that I love being
here and everyone that I've spoken to in al Taylor
Am I saying that right Alta, They've just been You've
all just been so welcoming, and I love that my
book is going to land in such beautiful hearts.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
Thank you so much, Gena. And that book is called
We Are the Stars. It's in stores this week. We
have assigned copy to give away. All you need to
do is text your name, your address, and the answer
to this question to ninety two ninety two. How many
days did Gena spend in the Tasmanian Wilderness? So that's
your name, address, answer that question, Text it to ninety

(54:30):
two ninety two and you'll be in the drawer to
win a copy of Gena's book. Don't forget that, write
director of the film a mistake, Qristing Jeff's is with
me after eleven This morning entertainment. As next it is
twenty three past ten you with newstalks at b.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
There's no better way to start your Sunday.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
It's a Sunday session with Francesca Rutkin and Wiggles for
the best selection of great baths use Talks at be.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
Every year, Wiggles invites young readers to tell them about
their favorite books. Each child gets three votes and the
titles of all those books are then collated into the
annual wit Cauls Kid's Top fifty, which are the books
most beloved of New Zealand children. The new Top fifty
was announced on Friday, just in time for the school
holidays and is now available in all wit cals stores

(55:19):
and online. It is a terrific selection. If they've been
voted for by thousands of readers, you know you can't
go wrong and there truly is something there for everyone. Plus,
the great news is that all kids books at wit
Calls are on a special offer for the holidays. They're
all buy one, get one half priced, so it's a
great time to stock up with books, games, puzzles, toys,

(55:42):
gorgeous stationary gifts and the Kids Top Fifty. There really
is something for everyone at WIT calls.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
The Sunday Sessions.

Speaker 3 (56:03):
This is the new song from there. It's called Alone.
There is another six minutes and fifty seconds for you
to enjoy. It's time to talk entertainment and I'm joined
now by Steve Neil, editor at flickstot co dot en z.
So what did you think of the seven minute wonder?
My producer Libby said to me she had to weigh

(56:25):
through four minutes before she got to a vocal.

Speaker 13 (56:27):
Well, apart from initially thinking I might have been listening
to the instrumental version of this new song from the Cure,
I really really dug it. It's their first new song
in sixteen years. The band has continued to be active,
but their new album, or the forthcoming album, Songs of
a Lost World, has been es hating for a while. Okay,
roberts Muth's now sixty five, so this kind of once

(56:50):
upon a time lipsticksmeared young goth is now now there's
sort of issues of mortality are kind of taking on
a resonance that's not just a kind of a young
poet musing about death, but maybe coming a little bit closer.
Sound of this album based on this first Alone, which
also opens the record, reminds me a lot of Plain Song,

(57:11):
which is the first song from the eighty nine album Disintegration,
which is possibly the Cure's best record, and like Alone,
Plain Song doesn't feature any vocals till that halfway through,
so it's very much kind of established the tone of a.

Speaker 3 (57:25):
Record excited about a new Cure album.

Speaker 13 (57:28):
Yeah, I'm super psych for a Cure album. He's Robertson's
quite a meticulous songwriter and bandleader, and possibly the last
couple of albums haven't you had the punch of you know,
the career peak stuff, But he's alway had a really
good vision of what the band is, the the tours
that they've undertaken down here kind of come through here

(57:48):
once a decade, play a three hour show, play thirty
something songs. Like the number of songs in the catalog's crazy.
His understanding of why people like his band is really good,
and that's something that so many artists lose as they
move forward through their careers. So every act I think
that's the heritage actors had a issue the remastered records
go back through the catalog, but that's something he's supervised

(58:10):
personally through the whole process, so kind of ready gets
the legacy and gets the body of work, and I
think that's what There's a real consistency with the sound
as well.

Speaker 3 (58:19):
Am I just imagine it. Are we seeing a lot
of bands sort of getting together again and releasing new
music or obviously we've got Oasis who were reforming to tour.
We've had Jane's Addiction who have just canceled their tour
after reforming to tour. We've got The Cure putting out
a new album. It sort of feels like we're sort
of there's a nostalgic kind of movement going on in

(58:39):
music at the moment. Yeah, well my reaching there.

Speaker 13 (58:43):
I feel I reckon it's been that way for a while.
We're definitely in you know, acts that are still on
the circuit and have you know, are still playing without
even sort of being like a surprise comeback. Are so
much older than we would have expected rock bands to
be twenty years ago. So I think aging with the
aging with the fan base and still staying active and

(59:04):
still taking everybody's money. But I'm going to put The
Cure in a much smaller category because I think the
creative motives here are pretty pure. This isn't a cash
grab reunion album. The fact that it's been I think
this album has been in the mixing stage for two years.

Speaker 6 (59:22):
Like this is a.

Speaker 13 (59:25):
Big effort. I want to get a perfect album, okay,
and we should get the album in full. I believe
it's November.

Speaker 6 (59:33):
First, brilliant.

Speaker 3 (59:34):
Shortly, Hey, tell me about the story about the New
Zealand skateboarder Lee Ralph. This is going to come to
our screens at a TV series.

Speaker 13 (59:41):
Yeah, this is super, super exciting. Lee Ralph, a legendary
skate icon from Altero, traveled to the US to compete
and made a huge impression during the skateboarding boom of
the eighties. So he was He's a pair of people
like Tony Hawk, Mark Gonzalie is has the guy who

(01:00:04):
alally invented street skating in the eighties. Lee Ralphi was
the best man at his wedding. Therese are guys who
love Love Ralph because he channels a kind of purity
to the sport that predates the commercialism and the status
of being an Olympic sport. But it also does stuff
like skateboard barefoot, and this was something that the Americans
did not anticipate. He's a really unconventional, interesting dude and

(01:00:30):
his life story is going to be brought to the
screen in a six part dramatic TV series, so not
a docco but actually re enacting moments from his life.
He's been around for so many interesting periods of history.
So this skateboarding boom of the eighties, he was skateboarding
at the big day out in the nineties it kind
of fell off the grid went through his own sort
of personal problems later on, but also his childhood sort

(01:00:53):
of sees him at a really interesting part of I
guess the kind of counterculture and almost mister Asia scene
of New Zealand. Tom Hearn from Dark Horse and the
Panthers is one of the show runners here.

Speaker 6 (01:01:03):
So interesting.

Speaker 13 (01:01:05):
Top to Hawk and Steve O from Jackass to executive
producers on the show. This is going up to the world.
Can't wait for people to discover Lee Ralph awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
Thank you so much, Steve. I've just had it actually
to flicks dot CO, dot and Z because I was
just going to make a mention. Of course, Maggie Smith
has passed away. Dame Maggie Smith. There is a delightful documentary.
It's called Tea with the Dames, and it features Judy
Dench and Maggie Smith and Elen Aikins and Joan Plowright
and you just basically hear them talk about their lives,
their careers.

Speaker 6 (01:01:34):
There.

Speaker 3 (01:01:35):
You know, it's a lovely documentary if you wanted to
just celebrate and remind us a little bit about Dame
Maggie Smith. That is actually streaming. You can get that
on TV and Z Plus. It is available to.

Speaker 13 (01:01:46):
Watch Bloom a day. I might do it a gospel park.

Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
Yeah, oh Gosspip park, a roam with a view. Oh look,
you could do sister act if you needed a bit
of cheering up.

Speaker 13 (01:01:56):
It is a Sunday there we go.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
Thank you so much, Steve up Next to the World's
Old as snow and cheese has been found on some
mummies in northwestern China. I know this is a story.
You need to hear it. Doctor Michelle Dickinson is up next.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin on.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
News Talks at b.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
Okay. It's time for our science study of the week
and doctor Michelle Dickinson joins us now and I primode
what we were going to talk about and Steve just
absolutely lost the plot with laughter. He was at, what
on earth are you talking about? This is such a
great story.

Speaker 17 (01:02:33):
There's so many great things about It makes me.

Speaker 3 (01:02:34):
Gag a little, but that's okay.

Speaker 17 (01:02:36):
So it's published in the journal Cell if you want
to read it at home. And basically, twenty years ago
they found mummies in northern China that were three thy
six hundred years old and so amazing on its own,
but what they found about these mummies is the females
were so let's start again. It's in northern China, which

(01:02:58):
means it's a very dry desert area, so they were
really well preserved. And they found with the females that
the things that were preserved really well were the boots.
They had boots on that were intact hats, but also
what looked like a special type of necklace. There was
this drops of what looked like some sort of jewelry
around their neck and they couldn't figure out what it was.

(01:03:21):
And it's taken them twenty years, but this week they've
finally done it. They DNA tested this because they didn't
know it was a living thing. They thought it was
some sort of jewelry. They DNA tested this item and
it is the world's oldest cheese. So these females were
buried with cheese around their necks, placed like a necklace.

(01:03:43):
And what we've learned about these people, which come from
the shing Jan province, is that items that are of
significance were buried amongst their value dead. So apparently cheese
was a big thing back there, to the point where
you were buried with it in a decorative way.

Speaker 3 (01:04:01):
Around your neck clearly lost its smell.

Speaker 17 (01:04:05):
I don't know. I mean, look, if you look at
the photos of it, it looks like a crusty scab.
So three six hundred year old cheese is obviously dehydrated brown, disgusting.
But they did do DNA tests on it. Amazing they
found that it's actually a kifa cheese, which is for
those who hadn't had it before, but you can buy
it today. It's a probiotic soft cheese that's either made
from cows or goats milk. It's actually great for those

(01:04:28):
who have a lactose and tolerance. And we know that
within those Chinese culture there are is a challenge around
digesting lactose and they are actually not only able to
trace the type of cheese it is, but also trace
the two types of bacteria in there, which are both
bacteria found in Kifa grains. And it's helped us also
to study and track bacteria over three thousand, six hundred

(01:04:50):
years and also let us figure out what our food
production is like for our ancestors and what their diet
was like all that time ago. And it's so hard
to get food products from that sort of thing. I mean,
it just all degrades. And so it was just all
of the lucky things. Number one, the fact that the
buried with cheese around the next. Number two, the fact
that it was in this northwest province of China that

(01:05:10):
is so dry, it's just the perfect conditions for keeping
things over a long period of time. The fact that
the bodies were well preserved. And yeah, but twenty years
to find out that the necklace that they thought was
a necklace was just actually scabby cheese that they have
no DNA tested.

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
And there you go, appreciate cheese more. If people would
like to take a look at these mummies and some
very old cheese. Where do we go again?

Speaker 17 (01:05:35):
The journal is called sal It was published this week,
and yeah, after twenty years We finally know where the
Wild Doddess cheese is, what it's made of, what it
looks like, and I think what it smells like.

Speaker 3 (01:05:45):
Fascinating. Thank you so much, Michelle. Mike vander Elson has
spent three years growing asparagus. It is finally ready to harvest,
and to celebrate, he has a grilled asparagus with halloumi,
but a cheese for you, relatively fresh lemon dressing and
almonds for us.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
Next, there's no bitter way to start your Sunday.

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
It's the Soday session with Francesca Rutkin and Wiggles for
the best selection of gray breaths used talk.

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
Said me, you're with the Sunday session. I've just googled
mummy cheese and I've got a photo of the mummy
that They are incredible photos. To look at the hat
and the feather in the hat. The hats are incredible.
Just so that simple. Just google mummy cheese and you
will get a photo of these Chinese mummies. Right, it
is time to talk asparagus. Our residence chef Mike vand

(01:06:34):
Alsen joins us. Now, good morning, good morning, congratulations. Because
growing asparagus is a commitment.

Speaker 18 (01:06:41):
It takes three years that it's like, where is this
asparagus coming?

Speaker 3 (01:06:48):
Is it a good crop? Has it been a successful crop?

Speaker 5 (01:06:52):
Wow?

Speaker 18 (01:06:52):
They kind of pop up now and then it's like, oh,
there's one there. I get too excited about day that.
I'm glad I'm not very staking my reputation or making
money out of asparagus.

Speaker 3 (01:07:03):
Well, I'm very excited that the purple asparagus is popping
up up and it's been well nurtured and everything. I
do love asparagus, not not a lot all the time,
but when it's in season, always make an effort to
grab a bit of asparagus.

Speaker 18 (01:07:17):
Yeah, and I guess it's it is one of those
vegetables you know. When it's in it, it's like, wow,
we've got to get some asparagus. But once you have
two or three meals, it's like, I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:07:27):
Sure it was you that gave me the best recipe
for asparagus, which as you blanche it and then you
wrap a little bit of prostruto around it and then
put it on the barbie.

Speaker 18 (01:07:36):
Yes that was a while ago.

Speaker 3 (01:07:38):
Yeah, that was brilliant. I'm still pulling that out for
barbecues and things.

Speaker 18 (01:07:42):
That's great and asparagus generally, and that's what we're knowing
today as well. Like grilling asparagus is an amazing thing
because I think that the charring and the grilling and
adding color to asparagus, adding just that little bit of bitterness,
as long as you got nice, sweet asparagus.

Speaker 5 (01:08:00):
It just works so well.

Speaker 18 (01:08:01):
It's kind of like when you char leaks, or you
char corn and you put a bit of cord, a
little bit are on the corns, another one of those vegetables.
When it first comes out, it's like, oh, I've got
to eat so much corn, and I see another cor.

Speaker 3 (01:08:13):
I don't know no more corn cobs. I was so
sick of the corn stuck in my teeth. Take us
through the grilled asparagus with halloomy lemon dressing and almonds.

Speaker 18 (01:08:22):
This does sound lovely, it is, and it's even though
it sounds fancy pantsy, it is easy easy. So first
up heat your oven one hundred and eighty degrees and
then I've got some whole roasted almond. So just take
them either use society a knife or a pistol and
water and just give them a rough sort of smash up,

(01:08:44):
lay them out onto a baking tray like a greaseproof
breaking tray, and then take two tablespoons off honey and
just drizzle the honey over the top of the almonds.
Then fire the whole tray into the oven on one
hundred and eighty. It's going to take about ten minutes.
And what you're looking for is for the honey to
completely melt down and start to caramelize around those almonds.

(01:09:05):
Once to see a little bit of color coming in.
Take that out, set those aside, let them cool down.
Now we make the lemon dressing. This is lemon, but
it could easily be swapped out for oranges, mandarins, limes,
et cetera. Grapefruit would be quite nice as well. So
juice of two lemons into a bowl, and then whiskin
the all important tablespoon of dish on mustard, two tablespoons

(01:09:29):
of our honey. Give that a whisk. It's got no
egg in this dressing, so it's an eggless dressing. And
then finally whiskin. I've got a cup of some flour oil.
Just whisk that in and then just check the season
and you might want to go a little bit of salt.
You might want to go a little bit more honey
and then a good crack of pepper. Set that aside.
You're done. Arms done, Dressing is done. Now we hit

(01:09:50):
the asparagus. Heat up your barbecue or get a cast
iron pan. Hit that onto the fire. Get it nice
and hot. It's got to be hot when you're doing
this charring. Take your asparagus, you know the track boiling water,
heaps of salt. Drop in your asparagus, count to ten,
pot out i water, drain it. A little bit of
sunflour or live bit of seasoning onto your barbecue. You

(01:10:11):
want that to hit it and instantly start to sear
and then take. Once you've done, you know, you could
probably use the same cast iron pan or put another
pan on. Take some hallumi. So ive got two hundred
and fifty grams of hallumi. So it's like one of
those little packs that you buy. Slice them into maybe
half seen to me to wide strips, toss them. Toss
the strips through a little bit of flour. Put a

(01:10:33):
little bit of oil into your pan, and over a
medium heat, gently fry off your hallomi. You want it
to become nice and crunchy on the outside. And that's
why we put it through the flower because it gives
it that little sort of crunchy crispiness on the outside
of the hallumi. By this stage, you could pull your
sparagus off, stack it up with your halloomi, and then
I'll put the toasted almonds. The almond sometimes when they

(01:10:54):
cool down, that might go like a kind of like
an almond brittle. I guess you could smash those up,
pop them over the top, and then you've got your
lemon dressing which can go over that. So you could
have this as a sandalone salad. You could put some
poacht chicken through it, you could put some fish with it,
and it's just a great way to celebrate the asparagus

(01:11:16):
which is coming up now September. September October is our
asparagus season.

Speaker 3 (01:11:21):
Thank you so much, Mike. And of course you can
get that recipe from Good from Scratch dot co dot
in z, or you can head to Newstalk zb dot
co dot nz forward slash Sunday we will get that
recipe up for you today. It is eleven to eleven
Grab Recover.

Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin and Wikeles for
the best selection of gras used talk zb.

Speaker 3 (01:11:45):
Wrighty host springers here, not that you'd necessarily know if
you head outside. Daylight saving, of course, is kicked in today,
which means we've got a little bit more light in
the evenings. It makes us feel like we've got more
time to do things. You might be thinking yourself, what
a good time to sort of reset some habits heading
into summer. So Erin O'Hart is with us, good, good morning.

(01:12:11):
We get a bit lazy, don't we over winter?

Speaker 8 (01:12:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:12:13):
I think people.

Speaker 19 (01:12:14):
Get unmotivated over winter. I think the days are shorter,
it's a bit grayer outside, more rain, and people think, oh,
can't be both to go for a walk, for a
run or any exercise today, And it kind of gets
becomes the winter habits have been a little bit lazier
and maybe a bit more comfort food as well.

Speaker 3 (01:12:32):
Nothing like a good pie in the middle of winter.
I know you're not going to be happy to hear that, Arin,
but it's true. Yeah, And I.

Speaker 19 (01:12:39):
Think now we're kind of getting that little bit lighter,
especially yesterday, I know most of the country was really sunny,
and it's that kind of little bit of pop up
inspiration of people go oh, look, it's sunny, let's get outside,
let's go move.

Speaker 3 (01:12:51):
Our bodies, frock up a bit of amond d and
feel good about the world.

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 19 (01:12:54):
Absolutely, And I think with those longer days, it's such
a good time to reset some habits, some healthy habits,
because having that extra hour in the evening makes such
a big difference, especially if you've really dropped out of
routine with some exercise. Is actually using this time to
create new healthy habit, whether it's getting outside for some
fresh air at the end of the day before we

(01:13:16):
have dinner, and creating those new healthy habits and habits.
You know, the things that we do repetitively every day,
and some of them we have good habits, and we
have bad habits, like things like brushing our teeth. Most
people just go and brush their teeth every day. They
don't even think about it, it happens. But actually we
do sometimes have some unhealthy habits, and this is a
good time to review those and look at what you're

(01:13:38):
doing and what you could do better.

Speaker 3 (01:13:39):
Okay, so how do we create a healthy habit and
stick to it?

Speaker 19 (01:13:43):
I think the best thing FIRSTU is knowing your habits
and knowing what you want to create change and actually
being quite pacific, not just I'm going to eat healthier,
because that's not really pacific enough to actually create a change.

Speaker 3 (01:13:55):
I reckon she start small to go Actually, I'm just
gonna have better lunches. I'm going to just work on
my lunches. I'm going to take lunches and just make
them more healthy and interesting.

Speaker 19 (01:14:03):
And that's a great way of doing it. Or if
you know so one of your focuses is maybe weight loss.
I usually suggest to people look at your snacks, or
maybe go for a couple of days ago, no snacks,
just like breakfast, lunch, and dinner, good old old fashioned eating.
Or maybe it's looking at your water intaking, being like,
actually I only drink one.

Speaker 3 (01:14:23):
Glass of water a day.

Speaker 19 (01:14:24):
That's probably not enough, and then putting in sort of habits.
And usually my suggestion with that, with creating the habit
of drinking more water is morning tea and afternoon tea.
Be like, okay, I'll have two glasses and morning tea,
two glasses afternoon tea. And if you're trying to bring
in the habit of like exercise, make it that something small.
So usually i'd suggest starting with a ten or fifteen

(01:14:44):
minute walk every day. And if you say every day,
it can become a habit where if you try and
do sort of half an hour three times a week,
you'll be like, I'll do it tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow,
and tomorrow never comes.

Speaker 3 (01:14:55):
You're just gonna make a decision. It's not shallow goos day,
it's oh, I have to I'm going today.

Speaker 19 (01:14:59):
Yep, and just every day, like just getting in that
routine and then you can move your body more and
you'll feel healthier. What's habit stacking mistaking is where you
already have a current habit and you pair it with
another habit. So I would appear like two things together
like as soon as you wake up in the morning,
and creating the habit of like get up in exercise

(01:15:19):
or get.

Speaker 3 (01:15:19):
Up and do meditation.

Speaker 19 (01:15:21):
So it's the first thing you do it and it's
kind of part of that routine and it becomes part
of the flow of the day.

Speaker 6 (01:15:26):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:15:27):
Erin some motivation for us there this morning. It is
six to eleven News Talks, VB Grab Recover.

Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin and Wiggles for
the best selection of great brings used talks, edb Now.

Speaker 3 (01:15:41):
A Mistake is a new film. It's out October tenth.
It is starring Elizabeth Banks. It's written and directed by
New Zealand filmmaker Christine Jeffs. It is great to see
Christine's work back on the big screen. Her last film,
Sunshine Cleaning, was released sixteen years ago. She's going to
join me next talk about her new film that looks
at the consequences of a mistake made during surgery. Very

(01:16:02):
much looking forward to it. Christine Jeffs is with us next.
Poor Katie Perry, the new album hasn't gone very well,
so this is a bit of a putty play. She
took to the stage for the halftime show at the
AFL final yesterday afternoon. The Brisbane Lines crashed the Sydney Swans.
It's a little bit of raw.

Speaker 2 (01:16:53):
It's Sunday. You know what that means.

Speaker 1 (01:16:55):
It's the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkins and Wickles for
the best selection of great reeds.

Speaker 2 (01:17:01):
Us talk Sippy.

Speaker 3 (01:17:09):
Yes you're with a Sunday Session. I'm Francisco Budkin with
you until midday. Coming up this Jason Pine on the
All Blacks Hawaii is king for tourists to visit, and
airfares are more affordable now for Kiwis and Joan mackenzie
tells us all about Pamela Churchill Harryman. Nice to have
you with us. New Zealand born director Christine Jeff's turned
heads with her two thousand and one debut Rain. She

(01:17:31):
began her career locally here in New Zealand, working in
post production and as an assistant film editor, as well
as directing feature films. Christine has directed commercials, exhibited as
a photographer, completed a master's degree in fine arts, and
written countless screenplays. And she's no stranger working with big names,
directing stars like Gwyneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig in two
thousand and three, Sylvia and Amy Adams and Emily Blunt

(01:17:54):
in two thousand and eight Sunshine Clearing. But it has
been sixteen years since she last delivered a feature film,
and it's a New Zealand book that has sparked her return.
In Christine's adaptation of The Acclaim twenty nineteen, A Mistake,
Elizabeth Banks stars in a story of medical misadventure, ethics,
and hospital politics.

Speaker 1 (01:18:13):
Good Afternoon, This is a mobility and mortality meeting.

Speaker 18 (01:18:17):
We're going to be discussing errors made by the surgical
staff in Lisa Williams case. Prefers hoy, our daughter is
in the walk.

Speaker 3 (01:18:40):
Interesting, Jeffs joins me.

Speaker 20 (01:18:41):
Now, good morning, Oh, good morning, Francesca.

Speaker 3 (01:18:44):
I realized I left off the horses. How are the horses?
Have you still got your horses?

Speaker 20 (01:18:48):
I'm about to go and pick up poop shortly?

Speaker 3 (01:18:51):
Yes I do, it's still riding.

Speaker 20 (01:18:54):
Yes, yes I am.

Speaker 12 (01:18:55):
I am indeed gets me outdoors, gets my Adjoinaline going,
keeps me focused.

Speaker 3 (01:19:02):
Brilliant, brilliant Now and mister Elizabeth Bank is an impressive
get for this film. A mistake. She's brilliant in this role.
Did you write this part with her in mind?

Speaker 9 (01:19:13):
No?

Speaker 12 (01:19:14):
Actually, it's such a long process making a film, so
first the story and the script, and then the financing
and then the casting and so so many things have
to come together at once for an actor to become involved.

Speaker 20 (01:19:32):
So so no, it was.

Speaker 12 (01:19:34):
A long process, and she happened to have a window
about the time that all lap financing came together and
we managed to get the script to her team. They
read it and loved it. For her, and then the
ball started rolling.

Speaker 20 (01:19:46):
Immediately. I spoke with her and she loved it.

Speaker 12 (01:19:50):
There's you know, it's a really complex female character. So
that's a little bit rare in some of the material
she might have read.

Speaker 5 (01:19:58):
You know.

Speaker 12 (01:19:58):
Obviously she had a good go of it with Caul Jane,
which is a drama she did before. But no, I
think she's really keen to get into some dramatic acting,
and she did an absolutely amazing job.

Speaker 3 (01:20:10):
Yes she did. I think we've forgotten how good an
actress she is, possibly because she's been in a lot
more sort of popular film popular films were sill, quite
quirky roles and things.

Speaker 20 (01:20:20):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 12 (01:20:21):
She trained dramatically originally, so she's very keen to show
off those chops and to get into a meeting role. Yeah.
So she was fully committed, and it did take a
little bit of technical rehearsal and so on and so forth,
and of course being in every scene, there wasn't much
of a let up for her, you know, she was
she was on screen just about in every shot in
the film, so it was was pretty intense.

Speaker 3 (01:20:42):
What was she like to work with?

Speaker 12 (01:20:46):
She's very interesting, She's of course, she's a director herself.

Speaker 20 (01:20:50):
Yes, so she's she's.

Speaker 12 (01:20:52):
Very upfront and outspoken and says what she wants. She
works really hard and she's focused.

Speaker 3 (01:21:01):
I wondered whether being a director is helpful for you
and your job. Does it make communication about what you're
wanting and doing easier or more difficult?

Speaker 12 (01:21:12):
Oh, that's such a complex question because at the end
of the day, I think everyone is Every actor is
so different in how they want to receive.

Speaker 20 (01:21:20):
Notes if you like performance notes, and then every director
is different as well.

Speaker 12 (01:21:26):
So if you imagine that combination coming together, you bring
personality into it, you bring the vision and nuance of
what's required. And yeah, it's an interesting process to navigate.
There's not really any rule books, so it's about setting
up trust. And I see myself as supporting her to
dive as deeply as she can, and so I always

(01:21:47):
feel myself I'm there to be there to help you
dive deep.

Speaker 3 (01:21:53):
Isn't that good though, because it wouldn't it be boring
if there was kind of like a rule book that
everybody adhered to, the director and the answers and time
every time you turned up on a set, you go, Oka,
this is the way we work, you know, oh.

Speaker 12 (01:22:04):
I know, well, you know it might be Yeah, I
mean it keeps you.

Speaker 20 (01:22:07):
On your toes.

Speaker 12 (01:22:08):
I have to pay because you never quite know, you know,
what kind of ingredients are coming into the max. It's
a bit like making a cake and you say, go,
I think I wanted to come out like this, and
if I add a bit more ginger.

Speaker 20 (01:22:19):
How's that going to go?

Speaker 12 (01:22:20):
So, yeah, you throw all the ingredients together, and of
course it's such a collaborative medium. You have a crew
around you and and you know, you think when you
see an intimate performance, you think, oh, you know, you
can imagine a quiet space and that happening. But of
course a film set's pretty much chaos, no matter how
hard you try and control the elements as people around
in the background and an eyelines and things like that.

Speaker 20 (01:22:42):
So you know, it's it's never ideal.

Speaker 12 (01:22:45):
So you just keep moving forward and trusting that you're
going to feel those great emotional moments when they come through,
and that you've set up the relationships as best you
can with the other actors and everyone contributes.

Speaker 3 (01:22:59):
The Kiwi accent. It's a difficult one, isn't it. Elizabeth
does a pretty good job.

Speaker 20 (01:23:04):
Yeah, she's slightly what do they call it? Meted?

Speaker 12 (01:23:07):
You know, she's someone who's traveled, so she's lived in America,
and she's lived in England and trained in England, and
so it sort of slips and slides a little all
over the place, I think, which is kind of fine
by me.

Speaker 3 (01:23:18):
What attracted you to the story, Christine?

Speaker 20 (01:23:21):
Yeah, Well, firstly, Carl's book. I love his book. I
did read it a few times.

Speaker 12 (01:23:27):
I was looking for a complex female character and something
that I could cast a really good.

Speaker 20 (01:23:34):
Strong female lead with.

Speaker 12 (01:23:37):
So the book gave us that, and gave us an
incredible plot with lots of kind of events happening one
after another. I love the nuance in it and the
themes essentially, you know, it's about human fallibility and how
we are with each other, and not about the procedure
of the mistake so much, but like the unraveling of that,

(01:23:59):
like how we communicate with.

Speaker 20 (01:24:00):
Each other and so on and so forth.

Speaker 12 (01:24:02):
So and also, you know, my personal life, i'd been
involved with what you know, my partner had a situation,
a medical misadventure. So it's really just opens your eyes
to advocacy and the kinds of things that can happen.
Obviously in the health system here in particular, as well
as all over the place, because so much of this

(01:24:22):
is universal, with you know, assuredage of doctor, understaffing and
nursing and all that stuff. So yeah, and now the
book collided, I think.

Speaker 3 (01:24:33):
And it's something which I think a lot of us
encounter at a time. The film sort of looks at
that gap that exists between what an average person or
a patient's understanding of a medical issue all the system
is and what the medical experts is. It's, you know,
there is this huge gap there between us and it's
how information is communicated or not, which is so important,
doesn't it.

Speaker 20 (01:24:54):
Yeah, totally. And also as we saw in the.

Speaker 12 (01:24:59):
Finn our Room scene for example, of Reenna Owen and
Matthew Sundland.

Speaker 20 (01:25:03):
Playing wonderful yes, thank you, Yeah.

Speaker 12 (01:25:06):
And I mean I think the sort of my interpretation
there and their interpretation allowed the allows the audience, I hope,
to sit in that space of that uncertainty and the
power of Renna there, you know, just asking questions and
the father we can see that exactly what you're saying
is a huge gap there. But also from the doctor's

(01:25:29):
point of view, she's confronted with their grief and what's
appropriate for her to say when she hasn't got the
bureaucracy in the room, as it were, So you know,
there's a sort of a fumbling on how that can
be in a defensiveness and an attack, and it's it's
all very human. So I think that, you know, that's
one of the mistakes she makes, also not talking to

(01:25:51):
them directly after the operation and just just live the
little things. How she talks to her registrar. There's an
accumulation of human errors and I think, you know, one
of the things our surgeon, who was our consultant, surgeon
Avanis Shama, said, you know, there's a move towards restorative conversations,

(01:26:14):
and you know, that's something I think is pretty exciting.

Speaker 3 (01:26:18):
It's been a while between films. I mean, obviously you've
been very busy, but sixteen years. Is that the nature
of the business or the way you like it?

Speaker 21 (01:26:26):
Oh?

Speaker 20 (01:26:27):
No, I think I'd like to have a little more
momentum than that.

Speaker 12 (01:26:29):
But to be honest, I think time passed and I
didn't really realize because I immersed myself fully and all
the things that life offers, and you know, by the
time I've written a sort of a couple of screenplays,
and I've directed commercials, and I've did my master's of course,
and then there was COVID and then of course this

(01:26:51):
coming to screen has taken three years time it's written.
So yeah, I life short, isn't it. I mean, yeah,
it's been a little while, and I didn't realize it
was going so fast.

Speaker 3 (01:27:05):
Christine, you started out as editor, and something I'm curious
about is do we get editors enough kudofs for the
contribution they make to the storytelling.

Speaker 12 (01:27:14):
Well, I always remember what a long commitment it was,
you know, after shooting the film day in, day out,
you know, crafting and structuring and working with all this material.
So they are yeah, hidden force, you know. And so
directors rely on their relationship with editors because after a while,

(01:27:37):
you could get lost in the material and the kinds
of choices, and you really need someone who's completely solid
and can once you've had the conversations about the tone
of a scene or a performance or a relationship between
characters in a scene, you really need to hold those

(01:27:58):
kind of lines and the rhythm of those lines for
the film to kind of have a cohesive kind of
tone and pull overall, So yeah, yes, I don't, I don't.
I don't really know. I just think perhaps they're not
that they're kind of hidden from the the sort of
outside glamour of the process. They're not on set, so yeah,
they're behind the scenes and they work away quietly and methodically.

Speaker 20 (01:28:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:28:24):
So I'm sure there's an editor or two out there
right now going do you know what? I save that directors,
but that totally, yeah, totally. Has it been good to
get out on the film festival circuit again, Yeah.

Speaker 12 (01:28:37):
Yeah, I mean I'm so appreciative that we were able
to go to Tribeca in June and see the film
with an audience for the first time.

Speaker 20 (01:28:46):
So I did three question answer sessions there.

Speaker 12 (01:28:49):
That's when you sort of watch the movie with the
audience and then you get to stand up afterwards and
answer all their they throw questions at you. And what
was what was amazing was just to sort of see
how universal the themes were and how passionate people were
about this, you know that you know in America as

(01:29:09):
well as New Zealand, and Yeah, I've had a lot
of really positive response And if I hadn't have been
there to see it with the audience then I wouldn't
have had that kind of boost that it gives you.
Really you sort of feel like, oh, there it is.
I've handed it over now and I can respond and
the conversation can start, you know, how to give away

(01:29:32):
it might And I think that's for me such an
important part of the process, is like it's not the end,
but it's kind of like, Okay, the film will now
engender these kinds of feelings and responses, and that's really exciting.

Speaker 3 (01:29:47):
Absolutely. One of the things that talks about in the
film at You I would love to bring up is
the idea of surgical outcomes being made public. Is that
something that we do in New Zealand.

Speaker 12 (01:29:56):
Well I took advice from Carl on that because he
knows all things medical, and no, we don't do it
in New Zealand, but other countries do. And Karl said
it could happen at any time. You know, these are
kind of policies that kind of get discussed from time
to time.

Speaker 20 (01:30:14):
So yeah, and I think we see both sides of.

Speaker 12 (01:30:17):
That argument from our main character in the film, but.

Speaker 20 (01:30:23):
We also hear from the ethicist about you.

Speaker 12 (01:30:26):
Know, transparency and consent and you know, we all want
to know what goes on behind the scenes in the
medical world as people who might participate on the other
side of it, you know, if we're not doctors or
medical professionals.

Speaker 20 (01:30:39):
So I do think.

Speaker 12 (01:30:41):
They're really interesting and divisive kind of subjects to kind
of raise, you know, they're heated.

Speaker 3 (01:30:48):
Absolutely, Christine, thank you so much for the film. Great
to see you. You've got another feature out. Keep the
momentum up.

Speaker 20 (01:30:57):
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (01:31:01):
That was Christine. Jess There and a Mistake is in
cinemas on October the tenth. The panel is up.

Speaker 1 (01:31:06):
Next Sunday with Style the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin
and Wiggles for the best selection of great reeds.

Speaker 2 (01:31:14):
Here's talk zeb.

Speaker 3 (01:31:16):
Get your All Blacks jerseys ready because Cadbury are taking
the Chair on tour right now. You could be in
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(01:31:39):
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(01:32:03):
z to check them out. Now, Who's ready?

Speaker 1 (01:32:06):
Chair on the All Blacks, all the highs and lows
talking the big issues of the week the panel on
the Sunday Session.

Speaker 3 (01:32:15):
In this morning, I'm joined by Chris Henry, director at
eight one eight.

Speaker 2 (01:32:18):
Good morning, Chris, good morning, and.

Speaker 3 (01:32:21):
Also director at Capital and political commentator Ben Thomas.

Speaker 2 (01:32:24):
Good morning, Ben.

Speaker 3 (01:32:26):
Are you both coping with dynut?

Speaker 22 (01:32:27):
Saman, Yeah, I'm feeling really good about it, looking forward
to perhaps the first barbecue of the season tonight. I
feel like that's always something that's good to do on Dawnlight.

Speaker 3 (01:32:36):
Saman, You're a brave man, Chris, you been.

Speaker 5 (01:32:40):
That explains why I'm a little tired.

Speaker 3 (01:32:43):
The penny's trying.

Speaker 5 (01:32:45):
I totally forgot about it, But now confusing Sunday morning
is starting to make sense.

Speaker 3 (01:32:53):
But actually, Ben, that is the way. You just ignore it.
Just ignore it. The time is the time, don't think
about it, otherwise it becomes a problem. Now, guys, this
morning we started off by talking about the government signing
off on its new speed limit rule, and I got
an awful lot of tech through and not one person
is unhappy about this. They're all keen to go. What
about you, Ben, Yeah, look, I.

Speaker 5 (01:33:17):
In Central Auckland, you know, where I was living. It
was crazy.

Speaker 16 (01:33:23):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:33:23):
We'd had speed reductions, you know, for some time, and
I think Simon Street was one of the first areas
where it became sort of thirty kilometers and then you know,
a post grade student did some research and found that
there was about five percent compliance. I don't think I
was ever a part of that five percent. You just
it doesn't occur to you that you're meant to be

(01:33:44):
sort of almost not moving when you're driving in the
city unless you're at the lakes, you know. I think
that one of the most frustrating and moments as a driver,
I think, and there's for our police force when you
accidentally come upon a cop car, you know, on one
of those streets, and then both of you sort of
almost lock eyes for a second, knowing that you're they

(01:34:06):
have to slow down to thirty days and they're going
to have to slow down behind you, and you're kind
of just stuck in this interminable kind of dance as
you both crawl towards the end of the street and
look for a turn off and you can get away
from each other and then go in normal speed.

Speaker 3 (01:34:26):
I think you described that beautifully, Ben, I think we've
all been in that situation in urban areas. Cresslog igue
what me been saying. I don't see anybody adhering to
the lower speed limits in central Auckland. I don't have
a problem with lowering a speed limit around the school though.

Speaker 22 (01:34:44):
Yeah, absolutely, I feel this one quite firmly. My partner
is a primary school teacher and one of his key
responsibilities is to demand the crossing at the end of
the day, and even at that thirty case. Children are
just so unpredictable and the people that are driving around
those areas just can't see when things are happening. And
the horror stories of near missus that I hear on

(01:35:07):
an almost weekly basis makes me really nervous that there
would even be any changes around that. I'm really glad
to see that they are keeping that thirty k speed
limit around those pick up and drop off times, but
I do wish that it would exist for the whole day,
you know, a good nine to five or six or six,
because kids are coming and going from those schools all
the time. And yeah, it just feels like a bit

(01:35:28):
of excellent when don't happen.

Speaker 3 (01:35:29):
And look, I think it's going to get really confusing
for people to know when they're supposed to slide down
or not. I think we all use our common sense
on this. We all go, oh, look at schools, there's
lots of kids around, I'll slow down, so it's pretty simple.
But it's actual gonna be aout two hundred meters. So
I was kind of like, just making the speed limit
and people can use some common sense around it, would
that be there?

Speaker 5 (01:35:47):
Ben? Yeah, Look, I think it's important to you know
those variable signs so that people don't have to do
the mental arithmetic. You know, you see them, and I
think pompstand and you know where they're electronic signs and
the speed all that changes during the day because I
think otherwise, you know, people do lose track of time.
You know, PM is barely you know, you know, still

(01:36:09):
midway through the day for a lot of working people,
and they don't necessarily connect it if they you know,
if they're not picking up kids to a school run.
So you know, I think I think it's important to
sort of flag it to people. I mean. The other
thing is, of course, you know, you've got this country
schools where you know, there's there's a lower speed a
little bit of about seventy k's for that two hundred meters,

(01:36:30):
and I sometimes I sort of only pick up a
little late that I'm you know, I'm going assooming past
the school in the middle of sort of nowhere. And
I really do think a bit more signage and a
bit more warning would really help there, you know, just
to avoid something unfortunate.

Speaker 3 (01:36:49):
If we build better roads and these we've got these
roads of national significance and there we put we throw
everything at them to make them really safe and get
one hundred and twenty kilometers per hour increase. The one
thing I would say though, is and this isn't just
for my family benefit, but also for every other driver
out there is. You know, I have a young driver

(01:37:09):
in our house, and we're trying to make sure that
they're getting has got to really as experienced as possible
in different in different ways. So you're driving on the
open road, driving at night, driving in bad weather, all
those kind of things. We're trying to build up that experience.
But not everybody has the same experiences as you're. Oh,
is such a good driver as your right and so

(01:37:30):
I wonder about putting it up to one hundred and twenty.

Speaker 2 (01:37:35):
Christ Yeah, I.

Speaker 22 (01:37:36):
Mean I personally the idea, especially in those big roads
of National cit against, you know, the ones up to
walk with and that sort of stuff, it seems ridiculous
to be doing one hundred and you could definitely be
doing one hundred and twenty. First of all, all credit
to you for making sure that those experiences happen in
all those different scenarios.

Speaker 2 (01:37:54):
I think that is so key.

Speaker 22 (01:37:55):
Yeah, personally, don't have an issue with the with the
big roads national cit against, but I suppose in some
of those smaller roads maybe it's worth having a making
a common sense approach to though, as we say, common
sense not necessarily that common.

Speaker 3 (01:38:07):
How do you feel about the speed limits on the
open road, Ben.

Speaker 5 (01:38:11):
Well, I tend to think that, you know, you have
a sort of plus and minus kind of ten percent
leeway allowed, you know, because you know that if you're
on the express way, you know there's not going to
be you know, you're not going to be sort of
flagged down or anything. I think everybody kind of takes one.
Tend to me one twitter anyway. So yeah, look, I

(01:38:35):
think in a formal sense you could probably do it
without much worry. But yeah, look I think you're right,
not not everyone's at the same way little experience, So
it's not something I would be sort of super pushing
for because I think you've already you've already got quite
a little attitude on those roads, yes.

Speaker 3 (01:38:54):
And we're trying to just sort of you know, you've
got a teenage boy who tells you they're a good driver,
and you got no no, no, I am no no,
trust me, you know I am no.

Speaker 22 (01:39:02):
I mean I remember being a brilliant driver.

Speaker 3 (01:39:07):
Gris, you nailed it, and I'm sure you were. Hey, guys,
I can completely understand why the people at Don't Need
and surrounding areas hit the streets yesterday and complete and
out of frustration with this hospital debacle which has been
going on for a very long time. Do we need
to accept that infrastructure that we need is going to
cost a lot more and get on with it, or

(01:39:29):
do we accept that we're just not going to be
able to have what we want?

Speaker 5 (01:39:34):
Ben I mean, hopefully there is a third way, which
is that we get a little better at delivering pro
chets on time and on budget. It's not impossible. I
was I did communications and media for Wayne Brown and
his mayoral campaign and twenty twenty two in Auckland, so

(01:39:55):
I know better than anyone that he delivered Auckland Hospital
on time and under budget. And you know, these things
are not impossible. But in New Zealand, you know, I
think the Infrastructure Commission has looked at this. You know,
there's just terrible, terrible management of our projects. There's no

(01:40:16):
real discipline, you know, throughout the lifetime of a project
in terms of you know, from desire, procure design to
procurement to build and yeah, look, this is a problem
across the world, but it's become particularly sort of egregious,
I guess in New Zealand over the last sort of
a couple of decades. You know what's the solution? You know,

(01:40:40):
do you buy one basically off the shelf from China
and get it built here? Do you get you know,
investigate PPPs you know, but but there? Or do you
just get you know, do you ask Wayne to take
some time out of the mayoral things, go down to
Dunedin for a bit, you know that, you know, But

(01:41:00):
we do need a solution, right, We need hospitals. This
is as you saw from the protests esterday, this is
going to be an issue. I think that the devil's
this current government, you know, not to really fault so
and they created the problem.

Speaker 6 (01:41:14):
He'll deal with that.

Speaker 5 (01:41:15):
Yeah, the health system is a mess right now and
it's not going to be cleaned up anytime soon. And
new hospital builds are part of that and there are
essential part of the functioning economy and functioning society. So
we need a solution.

Speaker 3 (01:41:29):
Well, you've come up with some suggestions there, Chris, A
quick word on that.

Speaker 5 (01:41:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 22 (01:41:34):
I mean, I think, Ben, we'ret know far more in
this area than I do, and I think that their
third option sounds like a brilliant one. The only thing
I know about building is that it never costs more money. Well,
it'll cost more money tomorrow than it will today. So
definitely getting started on these things. But I'm sure there's
many areas to streamline to make sure that these happen.

Speaker 2 (01:41:52):
I suppose.

Speaker 22 (01:41:53):
My other thing is just I were hearing the reports
that there were thirty five thousand people protesting. That is
incredible for a city of that size. So I know
how much the people are to need and must be
feeling about this and how important it is to them.

Speaker 3 (01:42:04):
Ben Thomas and Chris Henry, thank you so much of
your time this morning. Jason Pine's up next.

Speaker 1 (01:42:12):
It's the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin on News Talks
at b.

Speaker 3 (01:42:18):
And coming up at midday we have Jason Pine with
weekend Sport.

Speaker 23 (01:42:21):
How are you, Jason, I'm great, Thanks Francesca. Beautiful day
and Wellington. Even with one, is it one fewer or
one less our sleep?

Speaker 6 (01:42:29):
I still feel top of the world.

Speaker 3 (01:42:32):
You're always chipper. I expect nothing less, and yet you're
feeling chipper about the All Blacks watab Bees schooreline last night.

Speaker 6 (01:42:39):
Yeah, I am, I am. I think they.

Speaker 23 (01:42:41):
I think it was a performance that gave us a
bit of reassurance that's been you know, something that hasn't
always been present in the minds of all Blacks fans
this year.

Speaker 6 (01:42:49):
Look, I think it was a good performance.

Speaker 23 (01:42:51):
Yes, still a bit to work on, absolutely there is,
but I think you know, you can see the raw materials,
the green shoots, if you like, of what might be
possible under Razor. Very interesting end of year tour coming up.
You know, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.
I've got a month or saber for they jump on
the plane. But big test matches against England, Island and
France and consecutive weeks. But yeah, I enjoyed it last night.

(01:43:12):
I thought there were a couple of really standout performances.
Thought Wallace a Titi was exceptional. Will Jordan had a
really good game and nice to see Sam Cain celebrate
his one hundredth in that fashion. He got a terrific
ovation when he came on and just on the crowd.
It was like the old days in Wellington. You know,
we've been accused down here of not turning up for things.
Last night we turned up for it. It was a

(01:43:33):
real buzz in that stadium last night.

Speaker 3 (01:43:35):
Good to hear what's coming up on the show.

Speaker 23 (01:43:37):
Scott Hanson, assistant coach of of the team, leads us off.
We'll have lots of chats or a lot of chat
about the game, and then we'll cover off a bunch
of other stuff, including Liam Lawson's move to Formula one,
some netball, some basketball, some America's Cup.

Speaker 6 (01:43:50):
We're going to avoid the cricket though, Francesca, avoid cricket?

Speaker 3 (01:43:53):
Why would that be?

Speaker 6 (01:43:55):
Eighty eight? All out should tell you all you need
to know.

Speaker 3 (01:43:59):
Thank you so much, Jason Thinking. Jason Pine will be
with you at midday on weekend Sport. It is twenty
to twelve.

Speaker 1 (01:44:06):
Sunday with Style, the Sunday Session with Francesca, Rudkin and
Wiggles for the best selection of Greg Reed's news. Talk
Zvy Travel with Wendy wu Tours unique fully inclusive tours.

Speaker 2 (01:44:20):
Around the World.

Speaker 3 (01:44:22):
Meghan Singleton is with us now Blogger at large dot
com to talk travewal Good morning.

Speaker 9 (01:44:26):
Good morning, Francesca, Hawaii wants us Hawai.

Speaker 3 (01:44:29):
He's been very very encouraging in yeah, trying to tempt
us to head their way. I'd love to and it's
good to see that the fairs are getting a little
bit more affordable.

Speaker 9 (01:44:39):
Exactly, well, there was some Hawaii tourism folks in town
last week to meet up with travel agents and to
talk up and sprook the country. And I learned a
few things. Firstly, I learned do you know the Hawaii
Aloha hand signal? The Hawaii shakha? I learned where that
came from? Do you know where that came from? It's

(01:44:59):
a very interesting story. So it came from here. Was
a local man named Harmonica who in the nineteen forties
used to work in the local sugar mill squeezing sugar cane.
You know this is going, don't you. And he squeezed
his fingers and he lost his three middle fingers, so

(01:45:20):
they don't laugh.

Speaker 18 (01:45:21):
It wasn't fun.

Speaker 9 (01:45:23):
So they had to give him a new job. And
so they gave him a job supervising the train that
would come slowly through to collect the sugar cane and leave.
And so he stop it. He would wave his thumb
and his pinky finger with his two three missing fingers
to say, yep, all clear, all good train, You know,

(01:45:44):
kids stop not running around.

Speaker 2 (01:45:46):
All good.

Speaker 9 (01:45:46):
And so the locals used to took it on. They wave back,
so they would bend their three fingers down and they
would greet him, and thus began the Hawaii Aloha wave.

Speaker 3 (01:45:58):
There we go. That was a little bit going. We
didn't know before to day that we now.

Speaker 9 (01:46:01):
Took a bit of knowledge that you might look at
might be useful when you're playing the pub quiz edny Who.
What I have learned is that they're really focusing on
a new kind of global campaign. They want to get people,
you know, out of Waikiki, you know, out of the
mall and further afield. So they're really focusing on the
people the place, the Hawaiian Islands. That's going to be

(01:46:24):
looking at local food. It couldn't be just food truck food,
but local cuisine, music, culture, events and getting around the islands.
So that's quite cool and I quite liked that. And
then as you said, there's some tempting airfares on and
I just chucked February and just have a bit of
a look under five hundred dollars one way on both
the New Zealand and Hawaiian Lines. Hawaii are returning. Hawaiian

(01:46:47):
Lines are returning to New Zealand for the summer for
our summer season from November to April next year. So
that's all pretty good. I want another. One other thing
is they NCL does a cruise seven days cruise every Saturday,
year round, and I'm thinking that is really cool. That
could be quite a fun thing to do, a little

(01:47:08):
seven day island hop and they only sail at night,
so you can get off and do blue hours and
things like that on the local islands, come back on board,
sleep on the ship, wake up at the next island,
and then you could do a few days in the
Wahu and you could maybe stop at Alamawana, or you
go round the island and you stay somewhere else, or
you go up to the pipeline. And if it's the

(01:47:29):
months for the pipeline surf, which is October two March,
so fits those airfare dates quite nicely.

Speaker 3 (01:47:36):
And I see that Maui of course is desperate for
the business, and they're offering some good deals as well.

Speaker 9 (01:47:41):
Yeah. Yeah, and of course they after the big fires
that they had through Lahaina and Kannapali, so they had
some people come down here and tell us all about
the refurbishments that have happened, and yeah, they really really
want the business. So yeah, they made no bones about that.
And there's a lot of new hotels that have gone up,
some not charging resort fee, which is a typical American

(01:48:04):
thing that you end up with another, you know, thirty
fifty dollars a day on your hotel booking and they
call it resort fee, and so that's annoying. So some
of them don't charge that. It was really interesting evening
that I went.

Speaker 3 (01:48:17):
To, Hey, really quickly, how many New Zealanders do you
think we'll forget to get their UK visa before they
head off?

Speaker 2 (01:48:26):
What?

Speaker 3 (01:48:27):
You know, how are you going to have to pay
to visit the UK from now?

Speaker 9 (01:48:30):
Oh? Oh, does that finally No, does it finally come in?

Speaker 3 (01:48:35):
Well, not yet, but it is going to here, so
you're going to have to I think it's like ten
ten pounds or something. It's nothing made. You're going to
have to jump online and you're going to have to
order it. You know, you're going to have to order
it digitally, and you're gonna have to get a quick
approval before you land. And I'm sure that there are
going to be lots of Kiwis that are going to
completely forget to do this when it comes into play. Anyway,
we'll talk about that another time. For more travel information,

(01:48:59):
you can head to blogger at large dot.

Speaker 1 (01:49:00):
Com Books with Wiggles for the best selection of great reads.

Speaker 3 (01:49:07):
Joan Mackenzie joins us now Good Morning, Good Morning. Last week,
Richard Osmond joined us on the Sunday session Such a
Lovely Man. You can catch the interview if you head
to Newstalk zb dot co dot Nz. Joan your thoughts
on his new series, We Solve Murders.

Speaker 24 (01:49:24):
Well, I love it. He's got a real trademark kind
of wit and warmth about the way that he writes,
which is why I think so many millions of people
loves the Thursday Murder Club series, but this new one,
We Solve Murders has more of that. And I know
that you know all about this book, but I will
say that there's a family at the heart of it.
Steve's a widower and a retired cop who lives a

(01:49:47):
really quiet life, and his son Adam, is married to Amy,
who works for a security company called Maximum Impact Solutions,
and her latest assignments a real humdinger. She's sent off
to the private island of a world famous author. If
you think of somebody on the scale of say Lee Child.
So there's a lot of money sloshing around and this
also has received a death threat and needs a bodyguard.

(01:50:09):
So Amy goes off and it's a really easy assignment.
There's you know, there's sun, and there's sun lounges and
there's cocktails and it's all terrific until it was an
Instagram influencer was found dead alongside a whole lot of cash,
which has nothing to do with Amy until it is,
and she knows at that point they need to go
on the run, and she rings up Steve, her father

(01:50:30):
in law, and persuades him to come and help them.
As I've said, he's got a really lovely touch. His
books are pure escapism, and I really enjoyed hanging out
with all of these characters.

Speaker 3 (01:50:40):
Actually, he just nails that balance between humor and also
the crime sort of thriller aspect of the book, doesn't.
It keeps the story moving and it's interesting. But it's
just as you say, got that lovely tentle wit to it.

Speaker 24 (01:50:52):
And it's not cheesy, no, you know, it just rings true.

Speaker 3 (01:50:56):
Tell me about Kingmaker.

Speaker 24 (01:50:58):
Oh, I love this book. Kingmaker is by Somnia Pernell
and it's the story of Pamela Churchill Harriman, who now
married Winston Churchill's son Randolph, which was a disaster because
Randolph wasn't very good actually, but she was recruited to
be a courterzan during the Second World War so that
she could bring information back to the British government about

(01:51:19):
what was happening from influential famous people men obviously, and
she was very much at the heart of the war
effort with Winston. And then after the war she found
herself really cast adrift because her purpose in life really
was sort of gone. So she went to the States.
She had lots of liaisons, she's very famous for them,
married twice more. The first guy was Leland Haywood, who

(01:51:43):
was a Hollywood Broadway impresario, and he was the guy
who brought South Pacific and the sound of music to Broadway.

Speaker 11 (01:51:50):
For the first time.

Speaker 24 (01:51:51):
And then she left him and she married a guy
called Averil Harriman who was a US diplomat. And her
detractors all said that she slipped your way around, and
she was a gold digger and went after the money
because there.

Speaker 4 (01:52:04):
Was a lot of money.

Speaker 24 (01:52:05):
But actually she was a woman of extraordinary power and
power and influence, and she got very close to the
Democrats and Bill Clinton eventually sent her to France as
the US ambassador, where she had an extraordinary ambassadorial career.
So I love a good biography and this one I
thought was right up there with the best. She's a

(01:52:26):
singular woman, really really fascinating.

Speaker 3 (01:52:28):
Thank you so much, Joan. Those two books We Solved
Murders by Richard Osmond and Kingmaker by Sonya Pernell.

Speaker 2 (01:52:35):
Heap it simple.

Speaker 1 (01:52:36):
It's Sunday the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin and Wiggles
for the best selection of Gregys News Talk.

Speaker 2 (01:52:43):
Zedb, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:52:44):
So much for joining us today on the Sunday Session.
Thank you to Libby for producing the show today. Of course,
coming up next we have got Jason Pine with Weekend Sport.
As he says he's going to be coming on everything
that's been happening in sport except the cricket, but I'm
pretty sure he will talk about the cricket in some way. Hey,
next week on the show, Chelsea Winter joins me. She

(01:53:05):
is back with a cookbook. I think this is her seventh.
It is another plant rich cook based cookbook, but she's
getting a little bit more flexible and encouraging you to
add whatever you may want to into this into her recipes,
whether it's a bit of meat or eggs and dairy
and things like that. Turns out it's quite controversial. So

(01:53:27):
we're going to cover that off with her next week.
Really looking forward to that. Hey, I hope you enjoy
the rest of your Sunday afternoon. Look forward to your
company next Sunday. Take care, oh.

Speaker 20 (01:53:45):
Bucket Barnah.

Speaker 25 (01:53:53):
Then, but.

Speaker 26 (01:54:02):
Card they call him medical. Mary myel, they call him medical.

Speaker 2 (01:54:21):
Call co.

Speaker 26 (01:54:25):
Devis, they call him married.

Speaker 21 (01:54:29):
He married, Oh my.

Speaker 26 (01:54:34):
I they call him married.

Speaker 25 (01:54:42):
They call him married. Oh oh.

Speaker 21 (01:55:04):
B.

Speaker 1 (01:55:29):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio

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