Head2Head

Catherine was an MP from 2008 to 2017 representing the Green Party. These days she remains an activist in environmental, social justice, and Te Tiriti o Waitangi issues. She is Chair of Coromandel Watchdog of Hauraki and works in the campaigns against multinational goldmining in the Wharekirauponga Forest and is active in the national solidarity network for a Free West Papua. She is a writer and a tutor on social change issues, and Te Triiti.Funding for independent public journalism has been cut off by the current government. To support my work in speaking truth to power, please share posts on your social media sites. If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bryanbruce.substack.com/subscribe

What happened to the coastal shipping network we once had?Why are we not training young New Zealanders for Seafarers jobs especially with the advent of offshore wind farming on the horizon?And why are the major transport sectors of our economy - trucking,rail and shipping not working more effectively together?Find out the sensible solution Carl would instigate if he was MInister of Transport.To support my public journalism work and speaking truth to power, please onsider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bryanbruce.substack.com/subscribe

Max Harris describes himself as Public Lawyer. He is a barrister at Thorndon Chambers who also works at ActionStations. He was an Examination Fellow in Law at All Souls College at the University of Oxford, where he completed a DPhil in constitutional law on the prerogative and third source. He completed BCL (with Distinction) and Master of Public Policy degrees at the University of Oxford as a New Zealand Rhodes Scholar. While at the University of Oxford he tutored philosophy of human rights, taught law for public policy, and participated in (and developed) an education programme at Grendon Prison. He previously graduated from the University of Auckland with a BA/LLB(Hons.) degree. At the University of Auckland he was Senior Scholar in Law and Political Studies, and Editor-in-Chief of the Auckland University Law Review. His academic work has been published in, among other places, the European Human Rights Law Review, the Journal of Contract Law, and the New Zealand Universities Law Review. He is co-editor of two books on the legal contributions of Dame Sian Elias and Bruce Harris, and author of the book The New Zealand Project. He tutored tort law at Victoria University of Wellington while clerk to Chief Justice Elias at the Supreme Court. Max has worked as a campaigner and policy researcher, and has a longstanding interest in and commitment to progressive politics. He splits his time between legal research and work as a campaigner for ActionStation. He has authored policy reports on housing policy and a Ministry of Green Works, worked as an economic policy advisor to Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell in the UK Parliament, and was a consultant to the United Nations Development Programme in New York.Funding for independent public journalism has been cut off by the current government. To support my work in speaking truth to power, please share posts on your social media sites. If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bryanbruce.substack.com/subscribe

Dr Bryan Betty is a General Practitioner at Union and Community Health , a not for profit health clinic in Cannons Creek, East Porirua, a suburb that is known for its high needs and social deprivation. The practice has 7,000 enrolled patients, 90 percent who are high needs with 25 percent Māori, 50 percent Pasifika and the remainder mainly refugee.Dr Betty was the Medical Director of The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners before stepping down to become Chair of General Practice New Zealand (GPNZ) last year. I first met Dr Betty back in 2011 when I was making my documentary Inside Child Poverty and I can tell you he pulls no punches about the broken state of our primary care system and what we need to do to fix it.Over the course of his career, he has been a vocal critic of New Zealand’s rheumatic fever and type 2 diabetes statistics and is a strong advocate for change that will improve health outcomes and reduce health inequities for everyone – no matter where they live.Free to listen on Apple Podcast.Funding for independent public journalism has been cut off by the current government. To support my work in speaking truth to power, please share posts on your social media sites. If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bryanbruce.substack.com/subscribe

Dr Nikki Turner is a General Practitioner who is also a Professor in the Department of General Practice and Primary Care and Medical Director of the Immunisation Advisory Centre (IMAC), at the University of Auckland. She works part time as a General Practitioner at the NUHS Broadway clinic in Strathmore, Wellington and academic interests are in immunisation, primary health care and preventive child health. She represents the RNZCGP (College of General Practitioners) in child health interests, and is a health spokesperson for the Child Poverty Action Group. Her professional qualifications include MBChB., Dip Obs Auck., DCH London., FRNZCGP., MPH Hons MD Auck.To support my public journalism work and speaking truth to power, please onsider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bryanbruce.substack.com/subscribe

Bryan Gould is one of the Left’s clearest thinkers whose books and articles have certainly influenced my own views economics, political and society. So when the opportunity came up to interview him I asked if we could talk face to face rather than doing a Zoom type computer interview.The 17 minute segment I have posted here is just a fraction of what we talked about but it contains his challenge to the political Left in New Zealand - a challenge from someone who has not just been a brilliant academic and author, but was an elected MP in the British Parliament for 15 years who almost became the leader of the UK Labour Party.It was such a privilege to talk with him about the big stuff that really matters.Thanks Bryan.Below is just some of his biography an accomplishments.Bryan Gould was born in 1939 in Hawera, New Zealand.  He attended Tauranga College and Dannevirke High School and was dux of his primary and secondary schools.  At the age of 15 he won a National University Scholarship.  At Victoria and Auckland Universities, he completed a B.A. Ll.B., and an Ll.M. with first-class honours and won the Senior Scholarship in Law at Auckland University.In 1962, a Rhodes Scholarship took him to Balliol College, Oxford, where he completed a post-graduate law degree, the B.C.L., with first-class honours.  He joined the British Diplomatic Service in 1964 as the top entrant of his year and served in the Foreign Office and the Brussels Embassy.He returned to Oxford in 1968 as a law don and Secretary to the Governing Body at Worcester College.  He was an Examiner in Law for the University and in 1971 published an article in the law journal Public Law which was an important contribution to the development of the law on judicial review.In 1974, he was elected to the House of Commons as Labour MP for the marginal seat of Southampton Test.  He was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Rt. Hon. Peter Shore MP.  On losing the seat in the 1979 general election, he joined Thames Television as a presenter and reporter on the nationally networked current affairs programme, TV Eye.He returned to the House of Commons in 1983 as Labour MP for Dagenham.  He was elected to the Shadow Cabinet in 1986 and was the Labour Party’s Campaign Director in the 1987 general election.  He served in the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Chief Secretary, Shadow Secretary for Trade and Industry, Shadow Secretary for the Environment, and Shadow Heritage Secretary.  He founded the Full Employment Forum in 1992.  He contested the Labour Party leadership in 1992 but was defeated by John Smith.He returned to New Zealand in 1994 as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Waikato.  He chaired the New Zealand Vice-Chancellors’ Committee for two years. He is Chair of the National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence and at the request of the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology served as a Mentor to a newly formed group of younger social science researchers – He Waka Tangata.  On stepping down from the University in 2004, he was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit and in 2006 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Waikato. He chaired the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology for three years from 2008, and the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO, and currently chairs the Eastern Bay Primary Health Alliance.  He is a member of the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic’s Council and is a trustee of the Opotiki Community Foundation.He was a Visiting Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford in 2005 and was made a Director of Television New Zealand in 2004.  He currently lives at Ohiwa, in New Zealand’s  Bay of Plenty, with his wife Gillian and West Highland White Terrier, Lachie.  Gill and Bryan have two children – a son, Charles, who lives in Brighton, England, with his wife Angela and their children Anna, Tom and Hugh, and a daughter, Helen, who lives in Omokoroa, New Zealand, with her children Tessa, Nathaniel and Benjamin.PublicationsBryan Gould has co-authored a number of books, including A Charter for the Disabled (1981) and Monetarism or Prosperity? (1981). His other books include Socialism and Freedom (1985), A Future for Socialism (1989) and the autobiographical Goodbye to All That (1995).  The Democracy Sham: How Globalisation Devalues Your Vote was published in September 2006 and Rescuing the New Zealand Economy in 2007.  He is currently working on a book on moral philosophy.Bryan Gould has written many articles and pamphlets for the Fabian Society, for the House Magazine, for all the leading British newspapers and political journals, and for leading New Zealand newspapers and publications.Political InterestsBryan Gould has been a member of the Labour Parties in Britain and New Zealand for over 45 years.  He has written widely on political issues, drawing on his expertise in economics, law, education, the media and international affairs.  He was an influential thinker and leader in the British Labour Party for many years.EconomicsBryan Gould studied economics at university level and has become a leading critic of and commentator on many aspects of macro-economic policy, including monetarism, globalisation, Europe, and exchange rate policy.Legal IssuesHis academic training, his work as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of New Zealand, his six years as an Oxford law don, and his experience in establishing free legal advice centres in Oxford and Southampton have all equipped Bryan Gould to take an active interest in welfare law, human rights issues and in organisations such as Amnesty International.Tertiary EducationMore than a decade as Vice-Chancellor (or President) of one of New Zealand’s leading universities, his work for New Zealand’s Tertiary Education Commission, his six-year term as Chair of Ako Aotearoa (the National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence) and his frequent contributions to international conferences and to publications such as the Times Higher Education Supplement have made Bryan Gould a respected commentator on issues in tertiary education.The MediaBryan Gould has extensive experience as a writer and commentator, and in the broadcast media.  He worked in radio for the New Zealand Broadcasting Service, and for Thames Television in Britain as a television presenter.  He was invited to apply for positions presenting both Weekend World and On The Record, which were at the time the UK’s two top current affairs jobs.  As Shadow Trade and Industry Secretary in the late 1980s, he warned against the danger to democracy constituted by the cross-media expansion of the Murdoch empire.SubscribedFunding for independent public journalism has been cut off by the current government. To support my work in speaking truth to power, please share posts on your social media sites. If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bryanbruce.substack.com/subscribe

Bernard Hickey is one of my go-to financial journalists and commentators for solid, data driven, opinion. He’s also a regular podcaster who distributes much of his engaging and thought- provoking work through his Substack site - The Kaka which you can find here:thekaka.substack.comhas over 23 years of experience in public journalism and economic analysis with roles in a variety major media organisations such as Reuters, the Financial Times Group and Fairfax Media in Wellington, Canberra, Sydney, London and Singapore.His commentary on economic and politics is one I seek out on a daily basis and in this episode I discover what he thinks about austerity economics, The Commerce Commission’s latest report on Supermarkets and the $32.9 Billion the Minister of Transport Simeon Brown, has allocated to road construction and maintenance.SubscribedFunding for independent public journalism has been cut off by the current government. To support my work in speaking truth to power, please share posts on your social media sites. If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bryanbruce.substack.com/subscribe

With government accusations of overspending in the disability sector and cutbacks in benefits, I called Mel Smith who is the CEO of CCS Disability Action to get her perspective on these issues.Mel has worked for and with people with disabilities for more than 20 years since she was a student social worker at Otago University. After a stint in Perth as an Employment Consultant with the Western Australia Deaf Society she not learned to show employers the reality behind many of their myths around employing Deaf people, but walked the talk, by becoming an Australian sign language interpreter. She returned home to New Zealand in 2009 to take up the Team Leader role at CCS Disability Action Otago rising to become the General Manager for the South Island.Now Melissa (call me Mel) heads up CCS Disability Action and spoke frankly with me about the myth of overspending and some of the realities facing people with disabilities in our country today.You can find out more about CCS Disability Action here:https://www.ccsdisabilityaction.org.nzFunding for independent public journalism has been cut off by the current government. To support my work in speaking truth to power, please share posts on your social media sites. If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bryanbruce.substack.com/subscribe

Dr Mike Joy is The Morgan Foundation Senior Research Fellow in Freshwater Ecology and Environmental Science School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences.A late starter in academia, Mike first attended university in his early thirties to gain his BSc, MSc and PhD in Ecology from Massey University. He began lecturing there in ecology and environmental science in 2003. After seeing first-hand the decline in freshwater health in New Zealand, he became an outspoken advocate for environmental protection.He has developed bio-assessment tools used by many regional councils and consultants, and has published scientific papers in many fields from artificial intelligence and data mining to the freshwater ecology of sub-Antarctic islands. He has been working for two decades at the interface of science and policy in New Zealand with a goal of strengthening connections between science, policy and real outcomes to address the multiple environmental issues facing New Zealand.He has received a number of awards for this work, including an Ecology in Action award from the NZ Ecological Society (2009), an Old Blue from Forest and Bird (2011), a Tertiary Education Union Award of Excellence for Academic Freedom and contribution to Public Education (2013), the Royal Society of New Zealand Charles Fleming Award for protection of the New Zealand environment (triennial, 2013), the Morgan Foundation inaugural River Voice Award (2015), the inaugural New Zealand Universities Critic and Conscience award (biennial, 2016) a semi-finalist for the 2018 Kiwibank New Zealander of the year and was awarded the Callaghan Medal from the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2024.He has been an Associate Editor of Marine and Freshwater Research Journal (CSIRO; Australia) since 2015, associate editor for the Springer Journal - Biodiversity and Conservation since 2019 and an Editorial Panel Member for Transylvanian Review of Systematical and Ecological Research since 2010.Funding for independent public journalism has been cut off by the current government. To support my work in speaking truth to power, please share posts on your social media sites. If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bryanbruce.substack.com/subscribe

Dr Claire Achmad became Aotearoa /New Zealand’s Chief Children's Commissioner and Chair of the Commission in November 2023, a role she will hold for 5 years.She holds a doctorate in international children’s rights law from Leiden University, the Netherlands, and has published internationally on a range of children's rights issues.She also holds degrees in Arts and Law from the University of Auckland and has worked for children’s NGOs and international organisations in Aotearoa, Australia and Europe, held a senior role within Te Kāhui Tika Tangata the New Zealand Human Rights Commission, and practised as in-house legal counsel in the New Zealand government. She was admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand in 2007.How does she see her job as Chief Children’s Commissioner? What have children been telling her about their lives? And what are some of the issues facing our mokopuna and rangatahi? This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bryanbruce.substack.com/subscribe

New Zealand has an estimated 150,000 children living households with incomes below the poverty line (think the entire combined populations of Nelson, New Plymouth and Invercargill) with 64,000 of those children living in extreme hardship. In this episode of Head2Head Susan unravels for me some of the complexities of the Working For Families benefit and reveals the wired in unfairness that discriminates against children living in our poorest homes.Duration: 26m 12sFunding for independent public journalism has been cut off by the current government.To support my work in speaking truth to power, please share posts on your social media sites. If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bryanbruce.substack.com/subscribe

My guest today is Selwyn Manning- investigative political journalist and founder of Multimedia Investments LtdHe provides analysis, assessment, and evaluation of the political environment specific to New Zealand, Australia, the economies and island states of the Asia-Pacific region with a specialisation in the analysis of geopolitics, cyber-security, and, intelligence issues.He was also a former New Zealand Government press secretary and spokesperson for the Minister of Police, Internal Affairs, Ethnic Affairs, and Civil Defence Emergency Management. He holds MCS (Hons.) and BCS (Hons.) university degrees.To support my public journalism work, please share on your social media sites. If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bryanbruce.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bryanbruce.substack.com/subscribe