Nine To Noon for Tuesday 2 April 2019

 

 

09:05 Co-housing group "don't treat us like developers!"

A group of six Wellingtonians planning to build a co-housing complex say the dramatic increase in the cost of building,  and the difficulty some people in finance and regulations have in understanding the project,  means their plans are hanging in the balance. The Buckley Project is made up of two couples and two singles, wanting to start work next month on the construction of four terraced townhouses with shared communal facilities on a single site in South Wellington. They have resource consent for the project and are working towards building consent. But being categorised as developers, rather than people building their first home, has been an stumbling block - it means increased compliance costs on top of escalating cost of building. They say despite the increased interest in the co-housing concept in this country, finance and planning rules as they stand are not fit for purpose. Kathryn meets two members of the group Joe McCarter & Tania Sawicki Mead.

09:20 Lone-actor terrorists, a behavioural analysis

University College London's Dr Paul Gill has done an extensive amount of research in the area of lone actor terrorism, including the role of mental health, and wrote the first book using empirical analysis to understand the lone-actor terrorist profile. Based upon a unique data set of 111 lone actors, it looked at questions like: Is there a lone-actor terrorist profile? What role, if any, does the internet play?  What role, if any, does mental illness play? and how can the future threat be minimized ?

Dr Gill has also worked with the US Department of Homeland Security and argues the 'lone wolf' moniker is misleading and often counterproductive. He is also involved with the Grievance Project which seeks to make significant advances in increasing our understanding, and thereby reducing the risk, of extremist violence.

09:30 Apples and automation: Has the future arrived in the orchard?

An orchard in Hawke's Bay has become the first to use a robot in a commercial apple harvest. T & G Global's Chief Operating Officer Peter Landon-Lane joins Kathryn to talk about what it means for a chronically understaffed industry.

09:45 Blow for Biden, & does Trump cheat at golf?

From the US, Washington bureau chief of The Guardian, David Smith talks to Kathryn about unwanted touching and kissing allegations levelled at former Vice President Joe Biden amid talk he may run for president. Also, Donald Trump has been criticised for suspending aid payments to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. And a new book has accused the US President of cheating at golf!.

10:05 Adrian Hayes: Triumph and Tragedy on K2

British adventurer Adrian Hayes has climbed the world's highest peaks, walked to the North and South Poles and traversed Greenland by kite-ski. He's in New Zealand to talk about his book  'One Man's Climb - A Journey of Trauma, Tragedy and Triumph on K2', which focuses on his two attempts to climb the world's second-highest peak - and includes an intimate account of the deaths of New Zealand citizens Marty and Denali Schmidt on K2 in 2013. He joins Kathryn to talk about the dangers of pushing yourself to the limits.

10:35 NZ Books review

Jessie Bray Sharpin reviews Loving Sylvie by Elizabeth Smither.

The book is published by Allen & Unwin NZ

10:45 The Reading

The Life And Death Of Laura Friday (And Of Pavarotti, Her Parrot) by David Murphy. Part 1 of 12.

11:05 Reserve Bank reverses outlook, Mercury windfarm on horizon

Business commentator Rod Oram talks to Kathryn about the Reserve Bank reversing its outlook and now it expects it will cut its Official Cash Rate. Mercury announces it will build a major wind farm, the first big new investment in generation in New Zealand in five years. And Abano's critics were right after all - it is hard to make money out of dental practice.

11:30 Search Engine Optimisation, a practical guide

If you think the online presence of your businesses is in need of a boost, you want to improve your website traffic, drive clicks and increase conversions, then it's time to think about SEO. SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is  the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a website by ensuring the site appears high on the list of results from search engines, like Google. And there's good news! It is really quite easy to understand and mostly pretty straightforward, even for non-tecchies. Richard Conway is a search engine consultant and author of 'How to Get to the Top of Google Search'. In 2009 he founded  'Pure SEO' New Zealand's largest specialist search agency.

11:45 Words, hate speech laws, & editorial judgement

Words mean everything in hate speech laws and Media commentator Gavin Ellis says we're not very good at finding the right ones, claiming Andrew Little's review is well-meaning but fraught with dangers. Also, Stuff's changes to its comments rules highlights a wider social evil - a lack of  accountability for what we say.

Gavin Ellis is a media commentator and former editor of the New Zealand Herald. He can be contacted on gavin.ellis@xtra.co.nz

Music played in this show

Artist: Jonathan Jeremiah
Song: Mountain
Time: 11.24