Nine To Noon for Friday 20 May 2022

 

09:05 Grant Robertson: this is the trickiest budget I've ever written

Kathryn speaks with Finance Minister Grant Robertson about his fifth budget, including $1 billion to tackle the cost of living.

09:30 Brad Olsen: Inflation bites

Kathryn speaks with Principal economist and director at Infometrics Brad Olsen for his reckons on Budget 2022. He says inflation is the tiger that must be tamed.

09:40 No gib no job: builds paused due to supply-chain shortage

There are fears for the survival of building companies waiting for gib.  The supply of this crucial lining and bracing material has slowed since the August 2021 lockdown, seeing some builds stop in their tracks, leaving partially built homes at a complete standstill, with some gib orders taking up to seven months to arrive.  Some builders are moving to landscaping, or worse, losing out on work completely.  Clients are faced with choosing alternative bracing materials like plywood, until supply-chain issues ease.  One of the regions badly affected is Taranaki, from where Kathryn is joined by Director of Location Homes Campbell Mattson.

 

09:45 Pacific correspondent Susana Lei'ataua : what the Budget has for Pasifika

Susana talks to Kathryn about how $196m allocated in Budget 2022 for Pacific communities will be distributed. There was also $4.4m for RNZ Pacific's new transmitter. In other Pacific news, a state funeral has been held for PNG's deputy Prime Minister Sam Basil who was killed in a car crash last week, and 4 MPs have been sacked in Tonga after being found guilty of bribery in the lead up to last year's General Election. 

Susana Lei'ataua is RNZ Pacific's news editor

 

10:05 Levin Tornado : 'It's an absolute mess"

This morning's tornado in Levin has damaged buildings, toppled trees and power lines and caused road closures. Wayne McKinlay is the manager of the Honda Horowhenua & Stihl shop in Oxford Street, in the town centre. He says there's a big clean up job ahead.

10:10 Black hole image "incredibly exciting" development

Last week was an epic week for astronomers, mathematicians and astrophysicists around the world with the capturing of the first picture of a black hole in this galaxy.The picture shows a halo of dust and gas, tracing the outline of a colossal black hole 27,000 light years from Earth. Known as Sagittarius A* the object is a staggering four million times the mass of our Sun.It was a particular thrill for the University of Canterbury's Canterbury Distinguished Professor Roy Kerr as it proved a his theory - posited more than 50 years ago -when he found the exact solution of Albert Einstein's equations that describe rotating black holes. Dr Kerr's colleague and University of Canterbury Professor of Physics David Wiltshire says it's an incredibly exciting development that will enhance understanding of the crucial role that supermassive black holes play in the life cycle and ecology of galaxies.

10:35 Book review: When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Solà, translated by Mara Faye Lethem

John Duke from Unity Books Wellington reviews When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Solà, translated by Mara Faye Lethem, published by Allen & Unwin

A prize-winning, spell-binding, polyphonic debut of love, wildness and tragedy that marks the generations - for readers of Sarah Baume and Max Porter. When Domenec - mountain-dweller, father, poet, dreamer - dies suddenly, struck by lightning, he leaves behind two small children, Mia and Hilari, to grow up wild among the looming summits of the Pyrenees and the ghosts of the Spanish civil war. But then Hilari dies too, and his sister is forced to face life's struggles and joys alone. As the years tumble by, the inhabitants of the mountain - human, animal and other - come together in a chorus of voices to bear witness to the sorrows of one family, and to the savage beauty of the landscape. This remarkable English-language debut is lyrical, mythical, elemental, and ferociously imaginative.

10:45 The Reading

11:05 Music reviewer Grant Smithies​

As a hopeless fan-boy of Birmingham duo Broadcast, Grant is thrilled to be playing two of their tracks today- an early classic and a cracker from the new Maida Vale Sessions album. Also, brace yourself for a fearsome racket from Blenheim post-punk trio Big Scout and some sinuous Afrofunk from the late, great Tony Allen.

11:30 Sports commentator Dana Johannsen

The aftermath of the latest damning inquiry into Cycling NZ's poor treatment of elite cyclists. Is a new independent sports integrity body  the answer?

11:45 The week that was

Comedians Te Radar and Donna Brookbanks with some of the interesting and unusual names that Dunedin dog owners are naming their pooches, including Lord Furball MacFluffy (not featured below) plus the case of the elephant that saved the antelope.