Nine To Noon for Wednesday 10 July 2019

 

09:05 What should fair pay look like?

A new report from the New Zealand Initiative suggests small numbers of employees can hold the greater workforce to ransom through collective bargaining.  Its "Work in Progress" report flies in the face of Jim Bolger's Fair Pay Agreement, suggesting instead collectively bargained employment could cost jobs and harm productivity.  Kathryn Ryan speaks with one of the report authors Dr Bryce Wilkinson and BERL economist Ganesh Nana.

09:20 Protecting New Zealand's unique geological features

How do you prevent priceless geological taonga falling prey to the diggers?  It's a problem that's most recently come to light with the case of Foulden Maar near Middlemarch in Otago. The 28 million year old site with perfectly preserved fossils had somehow  flown under the radar of national significance. Dr Bruce Hayward from the Geoscience Society says the problem will certainly happen again somewhere in New Zealand unless action is taken. He wants what are termed as Outstanding Natural Features, already in the RMA - to be clearly defined, documented and assessed as a matter of national importance.

Dr Hayward has authored a Best Practice guide:Outstanding Natural Features: What are they and how should they be identified?

09:30 Rare snail found ONLY on one New Zealand hill

Mountain bikers are being warned not to go off track on one particular hill in the capital city which is the only place in the world where a special type of freshwater snail can be found. Potamopyrgus Oppidanus is an extremely rare and extremely tiny snail found only on Te Ahumairangi Hill, near the suburbs of Wadestown, Thorndon, Wilton and Northland. Bronwen Shepherd from Te Ahumairangi Hill Ecological Restoration explains more about the area's rich diversity and what is being done to protect the precious little critter and its habitat. Fun fact: did you know a group of snails can be referred to as a rout, walk or escargatoire of snails?

09:45 China gatecrashes Australia military exercise

Australia correspondent Karen Middleton reports on Australian and US navy personnel involved in a biennial training exercise having to use minimal systems and signals after a Chinese spy vessel sailed down through the Pacific and positioned itself nice and close to the action. She'll also look at the problem of festival drug deaths, moves to entrench religious freedom in law and evidence police accessed the metadata of journalists almost 60 times this year.

10:05 Want to excel? Be a generalist, not a specialist

According to US author David Epstein in his new book 'Range' there is growing evidence that shows many of the most successful people do well because they are generalists, not in spite of being  generalists. He gives the example of  tennis star Roger Federer, who credits the hours he spent dabbling in various sports with helping him develop his hand-eye coordination and his well-rounded athleticism. That of course would seem to go against the notion that kids need a "head start" if they are ever to achieve excellence.

10:35 Book review - The Oracle by Clive Cussler

Rae McGregor reviews The Oracle by Clive Cussler, which is published by Penguin Random House.

10:45 The Reading

Part eight of The Quiet Spectacular by Laurence Fearnley told by Katherine McRae.

11:05 The inter-generational appeal of music

Music commentator and University of Otago lecturer Graeme Downes has been continuing his seminar series with his students and finds the songs that students connect with are the ones their grandparents may have listened to. He tells Kathryn there was just one song highlighted by any of his students that was actually from their generation:

11:20 Gorse for the trees: How one man brought back a forest

Thirty years ago botanist Dr Hugh Wilson had a novel idea for trying to make hilly farmland on Canterbury's Banks Peninsula and turn it back into native forest. It was 1987, and the suggestion that gorse would be the perfect cover for self-sown native seedlings was met with derision by many. One farmer even labelled it the work of 'fools and dreamers'. Fast forward today, and Hinewai Nature Reserve is now 1500 hectares of native bush and his story has been told in a new documentary, aptly titled 'Fools and Dreamers', about to screen around the country.

11:45 Happy 150th Frances Hodgkins!

Arts commentator Courtney Johnston looks at the 150th anniversary of New Zealand painter Frances Hodgkins' birth, and an exhibition and several publications from the Auckland Art Gallery are the culmination of nearly a decade's work by one of our best art historians and communicators, curator Mary Kisler. Also, the Spinoff has a new arts section - what'll it involve?