Afternoons for Thursday 2 May 2019

1:10 Bill Hickman performs live in studio

Wellington alt-country musician Bill Hickman was our guest on NZ Live last June - at the time he was running a Kickstarter campaign to fund a new album ..

Well the campaign worked and he's releasing it today - it's called Crossbones and he performs one of his new songs live in our Wellington studio.

1:15 Explaining the Performance Based Research Fund

Earlier this week results of an assessment used to allocate the Performance Based Research Fund were released.

It looked at researchers in our universities, evaluating thousands of academics. But what is the PBRF and what do these results actually mean? We're joined by Dr Nicola Gaston, Co-Director of the MacDiarmid Institute, to explain. 

1:25 Micromobility and the future of transport

You're probably over all the stories about e-scooters, but there's more to them than clogged sidewalks and crashes. 

Horace Dediu is an independent expert on "micromobility", a term he coined for small motorised vehicles, which he believes will transform our transport sector. 

Horace will be speaking at the T-Tech 19 Conference next week but joins us in the Wellington studio to discuss his fascination with scooters, ebikes, and more. 

1:35 Brynley Stent's new comedy show

New Zealand's International Comedy Festival begins tonight in Auckland and Wellington. 

There are a plethora of international and kiwi stars this year, but we thought we'd talk to a local act today. 

Brynley Stent has been on TV shows Funny Girls and Jono & Ben, and won best performance at the Auckland Fringe Festival last year. She's in studio to talk about what she's bringing to the fest this year. 

1:40 Great album

2:10 Music Critic Marty Jones

Music aficionado Marty Jones spins us a couple new tunes in celebration of New Zealand Music Month. First up is Aldous Harding's 'The Barrel' from her new album Designer, followed by the track 'We' from upcoming Wellington artist Neil MacLeod's EP To Unfold.

2:20 NZ Biography - Leo Bensemann

Leo Bensemann is NOT a household name in New Zealand, but he played an important role which had a big impact on our arts scene - as a close friend of Rita Angus, Douglas Lilburn and many others, as well as being an accomplished artist in his own right.

Peter Simpson is the author of Fantastica:The World of Leo Bensemann and an authority on Bensemann and joins us with more.

2:50 The Reading

3:10 Link 3

3:15 Your Money with Mary Holm : Retirement Income

All sorts of issues were aired last week when about 20 speakers addressed a conference about retirement income policies at the University of Auckland’s Retirement Policy and Research Centre.
 
Minister of Consumer Affairs Kris Faafoi spoke of his concerns about the growing income inequality in New Zealand, and the need for a “massive culture change.  We need to be talking about money around the kitchen table.  Money is not a dirty topic.”
 
He also said that raising the age when you start to get NZ Super is “off the table”. The Labour Party talked about that in the last two elections before the 2017 election, and did badly, he said. “We live in a political reality.”
 
However, financial journalist and author Mary Holm tells Jesse she doesn’t agree with that. She also discusses themes that arose during the conference.  Among them:
 
•      The broad aim of retirement income policy is to smooth out how much people have to spend throughout their lives - before and after retirement.
 
• A lot fewer older New Zealanders are in poverty than children. But still, many people depend on NZ Super for all or most of their income in retirement. Also, many more people over 65 are continuing to work - some because they want to but some because they have to. On a brighter note, Treasury is fairly reassuring about whether we can afford NZ Super in the future, she says.
 
•    Much of the news about health in old age is good. Life expectancy is increasing, and people typically spend only about a quarter of their retirement needing help with daily living. While the number of people with dementia is growing, the chances of suffering from dementia are decreasing. Still, Maori continue to lag behind on increasing life expectancy.  And men suffer from more preventable and treatable non-communicable diseases than women, and tend to die younger.
 
•         People are being encouraged to spend more of their retirement savings, rather than leaving large amounts to their children. But the declining rate of home ownership is a concern, as it can affect how much people have to spend in retirement. Some speakers said the government needs to help with setting up products such as annuities that help people spread their spending over their retirement years.
 
•         NZ does well on the world stage in several areas. There’s less pressure on resources from an ageing population as we have a higher birth rate than many countries, and more people are continuing to work past 65. Also, NZ Super is widely praised because of its simplicity and the fact that pretty much everyone can get it, regardless of whether they earned income when they were younger.  NZ is also praised for the auto enrolment feature of KiwiSaver, which means the majority of adults belong.
 
•    What needs action? More research is needed on New Zealanders’ income and spending at all ages. There are also concerns about Maori being worse off in retirement. And the government needs to help set up ways for people to handle their spending during retirement.

3:35 Are we there yet?

Another episode of Katy Gosset's parenting podcast

3:45 The Pre-Panel Story of the Day and One Quick Question

4:05 The Panel with Paula Penfold and Morgan Godfery