Nine To Noon for Wednesday 11 December 2019

 

09:05 Whakatane mayor on Whakaari/ White Island's deadly eruption

The eastern Bay of Plenty town of Whakatane is reeling after the deadly eruption at Whakaari/White Island which killed six visitors, injured 30, with eight people missing and presumed dead. Kathryn speaks with Whakatane mayor Judy Turner about how the island is managed.

09:15 Whakaari /White Island : how risk is determined

GNS Volcanologist Brad Scott has been monitoring and visiting White Island for around 40 years. The Volcanic Alert Level remains at Level 3. You can watch the data from the two monitoring stations on the island.

09:25 US volcanologist voiced concern seven years ago

Erik Klemetti is a geosciences professor at Denison University in Ohio and joins Kathryn to talk about why he wrote about his concerns over tourism to White Island/Whakaari back in 2012.

09:20 Campaign to clamp down on drug companies' influence

The British Medical Journal has launched a major global campaign to reform how medical evidence is produced and used - to try and create a more trustworthy healthcare.  The BMJ says doctors are being unduly influenced by industry-sponsored education events and industry-funded trials for major drugs. Kathryn speaks with the Editor of the BJM, Dr Fiona Godlee, who says industry funded trials cannot be trusted and governments ought to start funding independent trials of new drugs and medical devices.

09:45 Australia's shock at White Island tragedy, bushfires' choking smoke

Australia correspondent Karen Middleton joins Kathryn to talk about Australia's response in the wake of the White Island tragedy, with many of the missing Australian citizens. She'll also talk about how parts of Sydney, Canberra and other parts of Eastern Australia are smothered in thick smoke from bushfires that won't stop, how the Morrison government is still trying to push its religious freedom bill and Western Australia has become the second Australian state to legalise voluntary assisted dying.

10:05 Curry House Kid: dance, racism and reinventing restaurants

Akram Khan has traveled the word performing, formed his own dance company, won an Olivier Award and been honoured by the Queen.  As a kid he used to dance on the tables of his father's curry restaurant in South London.  A new documentary about Akram called The Curry House Kid will be shown at the Auckland Arts Festival next March, followed by a panel discussion. When he was twenty, struggling with his Bangladeshi culture and his father's expectations over him taking over the curry house, Akram broke ranks to become a professional dancer.  But in the film Akram revisits London's iconic curry capital Brick Lane, returning to his memories of growing up with his Bangladeshi parents, and to the violence and racism that shaped his everyday life, a ll of this culminating in a hypnotic dance piece where he celebrates his peoples' journey, telling the story of the immigrant experience in Britain.

10:35 Whakaari /White Island live press update

Chief Coroner Judge Deborah Marshall and Acting Assistant Commissioner Bruce Bird address the media about the identification and coronial processes following the Whakaari/White Island eruption.

10:40 Book review - Damascus

Phil Vine reviews Damascus by Christos Tsiolkas. Published by Allen and Unwin.

10:45 The Reading

Chute Thru by Janice Marriott read by Michael Whalley - part 8 of 10.

11:05 The music of Kate and Anna McGarrigle

Music reviewer Graeme Downes joins Kathryn to talk about Canadian sister singer-songwriting duo Kate and Anna McGarrigle, with a look at their songs First Born, Dancer with Bruised Knees and Perrine Était Servante. He'll also look ahead to how next year marks the 250th birthday of Beethoven's birth.

Graeme Downes is a musicologist and senior lecturer in the Department of Music at the University of Otago.

 

11:20 Ian Powell: speaking up for senior doctors for three decades

Ian Powell has been the public face of the senior doctors union for the last three decades. He was the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists' first Executive Director in 1989, when the union had 12 hundred members. It now has five thousand members and Ian Powell has just retired, handing over to Sarah Dalton. He talks to Kathryn Ryan about years of fighting for the pay and conditions of medical specialists and being a vocal advocate for the public health sector.

11:45 Law: A year of big changes for the Family Court

Law commentator Simon Jefferson talks to Kathryn about the roll back of reforms introduced in 2014 that put the onus on families to resolve disputes among them by themselves, bold recommendations of the Law Commission over relationship property and a refocusing of the Oranga Tamariki Act.