Nine To Noon for Friday 5 May 2023

09:05 Links between youth mental health and environment

The results of a newly published study link young people's mental health with where they grow up. Data from nearly a million young Kiwis demonstrates the effect environment has on youth mental health, and points to the relevance of this for urban and rural planning. Researchers at the University of Canterbury have been mapping localities and investigating whether living near gaming venues, takeaways and liquor stores, or green and blue areas like parks and rivers are linked to mental health. The paper, published in the journal Social Science and Medicine show young people living in unhealthy environments are more likely to experience poorer emotional and mental health and addiction.  University of Canterbury Senior Lecturer in Public Health Dr Matt Hobbs and Dr Nick Bowden from the University of Otago co-led the study. Dr Matt Hobbs joins Kathryn.

09:25 Tens of thousands of train passengers disrupted in Auckland

A fault with KiwiRail's overhead power lines has caused commuter chaos across Auckland this morning, with train services cancelled across the city. The fault at Grafton resulted in power being switched off for safety reasons, forcing Auckland Transport to cancel all southern and eastern line services between Ōtāhuhu and Britomart, as well as all Western & Onehunga Line services. This has impacted tens of thosuands of passengers, and because of the late notice of the outage, Auckland Transport says it was only able to provide a small number of bus replacements. Kathryn speaks with Darek Koper, Auckland Transport's Group Manager of Metro Services. 

09:30 Making room for writers

Writers will have a new place to meet and work in the creative heart of the capital later this month.  There will be a seat at the table whether there's a book of poetry in the making, a novel, or a mother's memoir. The Wellington Writers' Studio is launching in the historic Berry Building on Cuba Street. Inspired by what she saw in New York, and concerned her local neighbourhood might be losing its creative edge, the mind and the purse behind this is Emily Makere Broadmore, who speaks with Kathryn.

09:45 Pacific correspondent Koroi Hawkins

Koroi discusses Immigration NZ's explanation of use of dawn raid tactics. French Polynesia is set for a pro-independence president, and Niue's general election results with six women MPs voted in, the most there's ever been. Schools in American Samoa have reopened following a measles outbreak, but students must be fully vaccinated. US President Joe Biden will visit Papua New Guinea next month. And in sports Mate Ma'a Tonga will be the first Pacific rugby league team to tour and play England.

RNZ Pacific Editor Koroi Hawkins 

 

10:05 TAIC findings just released into Interislander ferry near grounding

The Transport Accident Investigation Commission's final preliminary report shows that KiwiRail failed to follow manufacturers advice about a critical joint in its cooling system on the interislander ferry Kaitaki. The incident happened in late January when the Kaitaki lost power, leaving it drifting close to Wellington's south coast. The report finds that one of the ships safety-critical rubber expansion joints ruptured and prevented the engines restarting, and that the joint was old and overdue for replacement. RNZ reporter Kirsty Frame has just been at a briefing at the Commission 

10:15 Historian Redmer Yska on tracking Katherine Mansfield across Europe

She's one of New Zealand's greatest writers - yet at the end of her life, Katherine Mansfield was buried in a pauper's grave in France. Her remains were reinterred six years later in a tomb that for years simply described her as the 'wife of John Middleton Murry' - but it's possible the remains are not actually hers. It was a site historian Redmer Yska visited as part of his traverse of Europe in pursuit of the places Mansfield stayed in the final years before she finally succumbed in at age 34 to the tuberculosis that plagued her.  His investigation of her post-war life in France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland found a number of European devotees determined to preserve her legacy. It also uncovered how learning to shoot a gun helped make her feel like a "new being", as she coped with a depression - and sometimes fury - brought on by an increasingly debilitating disease. The medicine she was taking up to six times a day contained a powerful opiate to which she became addicted - yet it's at this point she was penning some of her best work. The details are all in Redmer's new book Katherine Mansfield's Europe: Station to Station, which he'll be talking about at this year's Auckland Writers' Festival.

10:35 Book review: How To Get Fired by Evan Belich

Carole Beu from The Women's Bookshop in Ponsonby reviews How To Get Fired by Evana Belich, published by Penguin 

10:45 Around the motu : Tess Brunton in Dunedin

Tess has the latest on the Invercargill City Council shambles with a councillor and former stadium manager suggesting an 18-year-old employee would enjoy jelly wrestling naked. Nigel Skelt's comments have prompted councillor Ria Bond to take a stand and say she will not work with him as it is against her principles. It will trigger a by-election if either resign. The cost estimated to be $120,000. Wild pigs causing destruction and unnerving St Bathans residents, amid concerns that they will attack. And a cave dwelling arsonist has been sentenced to 13 months jail after burning down the hut he used to live in.

RNZ reporter Tess Brunton covers Otago and Southland.

 

11:05 Music reviewer Grant Smithies​

Dunedin band Cloudboy’s miraculous 2001 debut album Down At The End Of The Garden has just been issued on vinyl for the first time. We’ll hear two tracks from that today, alongside a song from the first and only EP by 1980s Christchurch band Playthings and the debut album from long-time Whanganui reggae collective, Roots Provider.
 

11:30 Sports commentator Sam Ackerman : Does talk of a Super Rugby Pacific draft hold any merit?

Sam Ackerman looks into the ways being mooted to refresh the competition, the former All Black who could come back to haunt NZ and why is Team New Zealand working with the most controversial contributors to world sport?

11:45 The week that was

Comedians Te Radar and Donna Brookbanks bring a few laughs