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Nights for Wednesday 26 March 2025

8:10 The House

Tonight on our Parliament show - The House - Louis Collins looks at a rowdy Question Time, as well as all the bills going through urgency this week.

8:15 Pacific Waves

A daily current affairs programme that delves deeper into the major stories of the week, through a Pacific lens, and shines a light on issues affecting Pacific people wherever they are in the world. Hosted by Susana Suisuiki.

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8:30 What students say makes a good teacher

Emile Donovan speaks to Dr Kane Meissel an Associate Professor in Educational Psychology in the School of Learning at the University of Auckland.

Teacher with schoolgirls reading storybook in classroom at primary school

Photo: Sydney Bourne / Cultura Creative via AFP

8:45 The Reading

Tonight, part three of 'Harbouring' by Jenny Pattrick, told by Alex Grieg 

9:07 Nights Quiz

Do you know your stuff? Come on the air and be grilled by Emile Donovan as he dons his quizmaster hat.

If you get an answer right, you move on to the next question. If you get it wrong, your time in the chair is up, and the next caller will be put through. The person with the most correct answers at the end of the run goes in the draw for a weekly prize.

9:25 Our Changing World's Claire Concannon

We're travelling down to Dunedin to catch up with Claire Concannon, the host of RNZ's science podcast Our Changing World about the government's new Public Research Organisations, and celebrating the (un)charismatic blobfish.

9:35 Midweek Mediawatch

Tonight on Midweek Mediawatch Hayden Donnell talks to Emile Donovan about the ongoing takeover bid at NZME, the increasingly dangerous situation for Palestinian journalists and Stuff's new AI policy.

NZME building

Photo: RNZ

10:17 Flaws in the plan for roadside drug testing say civil liberties group

New Zealand roads will soon see drivers tested for cocaine, methamphetamine and cannabis via random roadside saliva tests, after a new piece of legislation passed its third and final reading today.

In 2023, there were 138 fatal car crashes where a driver's drug use were a contributing factor.

Critics say the technology for picking up on the presence of drugs has inconsistent results, and that a simple saliva test cannot accurately assess impairment.

Emile Donovan speaks to the chairperson of the NZ Council for Civil Liberties Thomas Beagle.

A police checkpoint at Mana, Wellington.

Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson

10:30 Why how we design our prisons matters

It costs about $150,000 a year to keep someone inside prison and last year the total number of prisoners in New Zealand crossed 10,000 for the first time in four years.

That number is expected to keep rising and so the Government is expanding our prisons to accommodate.

No longer are prisons just concrete walls with bars on the windows; they are multi-million dollar facilities which can house over 1000 people. 

Someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about how we build prisons is criminologist Yvonne Jewkes.

Yvonne has helped design prisons in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand and is an advocate of prison architecture that is more humane and rehabilitative.

She speaks to Emile Donovan about why we need to think humanely about the design of our prisons.

A book cover with the title An Architecture of Hope: Reimagining the Prison, Restoring a House, Rebuilding Myself in white letters set on a blue background. At the bottom of a cover is a grey roof.

Photo: Scribe publishing

11:07 Pocket Edition

Maggie Tweedie introduces us to Queen Omega and Irish Singer Camille O'Sullivan and shares some musical gems.