Nine To Noon for Monday 5 February 2024

09:05 Immigration has some Auckland high schools bursting at the seams

As students head back to class, some secondary schools are already chocka with immigration constantly contributing to roll growth. The unpredictablility of even more students arriving is a major headache for many schools around Tāmaki Makaurau -  causing stress on principals juggling resources and teachers who are already facing full classrooms. A common complaint from schools spoken to by Nine to Noon is that the Ministry of Education hasn't adequately informed schools of projected growth.In some cases prefabs have been located at schools over the summer just so students will have somewhere to sit. Patrick Gale is the Principal of the country's largest school, Rangitoto College on Auckland's North Shore, and Greg Pierce who is the immediate past President of the Auckland Secondary Principals Association outline the pressures many schools are under.

09:25 Business buoyancy as new shops pepper the centre of Hawera

 In the Taranaki town of Hawera, the local business association, Bizlink says efforts to promote and beautify the town are paying off. More people are moving there, new shops are opening. Bizlink Event & Vibrancy Coordinator Nikki Watson says they're also focusing on events to build community spirit

09:35 The Blenheim company turning wood chips into graphite for EV batteries

A Blenheim company is turning wood chips and sawdust into graphite to be used in EV batteries. CarbonScape was founded in 2006 - with a focus on making carbon products using waste biomass like wood chips to create biochar to help soil health and also green coke coal for steelmaking. But the company has changed its focus to offering customers its patent technology that converts woody biomass to biographite. In recent years CarbonScape has received an $18 million investment from Swedish and Finnish company Stora Enso - considered one of the biggest forest, paper and packaging companies in the world. In December it also won a multi-million-dollar grant from Callaghan Innovation. CarbonScape's finance director Oliver Foster told Bryan the company wants to become the preferred graphite choice when it comes to manufacturing batteries.  

09:45 Middle East correspondent Sebastian Usher

Sebastian discusses the US airstrikes targeting Iraq and Syria, following the deaths of three US troops in Jordan. And reports Israel and Hamas are inching towards a deal for a ceasefire. Several vital supplied of fuel and flour risk running out in Gaza, as several countries pause funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. It follows accusations that several UNRWA took part in Hamas' initial attack on Israel.

Sebastian Usher is a BBC Middle East analyst, editor and reporter.

10:05 Doco series finds defective builds still plaguing New Zealand

 If you thought the leaky building crisis was a thing of decades past, John Gray and Roger Levie want you to think again. The pair were the heads of their respective body corporates when they had to deal with their own leaky building issues. Their experience would eventually see them form HOBANZ - the Home Owners and Buyers Association - to provide guidance and support to others in similar situations. John and Roger filmed a documentary series in 2021 called A Living Hell: Apartment Disasters and a second season has just been released. In it, they continue their investigation into building problems: how they're being remediated, the toll it has on owners and residents - and concerningly, the defects that are still cropping up. John and Roger join Bryan to talk about some of the solutions and examples of what's worked well overseas, including a newly-created regulatory body in New South Wales, which came into being in December.

10:35 Book review: Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood 

 Laura Caygill reviews Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood published by Allen and Unwin

10:45 Around the motu: Kim Bowden covering Queenstown Wānaka & Cromwell 

Central Otago District Council chief executive Peter Kelly is proposing changes to the role the four community boards in the district have in decision making. Kim discusses the move and the reaction to it. Also as workers continue to struggle to find a place to live in Queenstown Two separate decisions by the Overseas Investment Office have given the green light for multinational hotel operators to buy land to provide staff housing. And stallholders used to setting up lakesideare still questioning new bylaws introduced by the Queenstown Lakes District Council late last year that they say are stopping them from doing business.

Kim Bowden is a Crux editor and senior journalist.

11:05 Political commentators Dale Husband and Ben Thomas

It's all eyes on Waitangi as Prime Minister Christopher Luxon arrives at the Treaty Grounds today. What reception will he and his coalition colleagues get? And the Green Party is searching for a new co-leader after James Shaw stepped down.

Dale Husband is a long time broadcaster and Radio Waatea presenter hosting a Māori focused current affairs programme.

Ben Thomas is a former National government press secretary, a columnist and a director of public affairs firm Capital.

11:30 Ōkato's Chocolate Lady - a character worthy of Wonka

Nicci Richards is that rare kind of person who has managed to turn her dreams into reality. Better known these days - at least in Ōkato - as 'The Chocolate Lady' the coastal Taranaki farmer remembers falling in love with Willy Wonka as a five-year-old. Decades later, she has created a world and a character worthy of Wonka, herself. Renowned for her tuxedo getup, complete with candy cane and hot pink top hat, The Chocolate Lady is a regular fixture at the Ōkato markets, selling fantastical chocolates from the back of a pink ambulance-cum-food truck. 

11:45 Off the beaten track with Kennedy Warne

Kennedy is in Palau on the final day of an eight-day National Geographic expedition, snorkelling and kayaking around Palau's Rock Island World Heritage Site - some 300 islands, large and small, all drenched in tropical forest and bathed by coral-rich seas.