The Panel with Cas Carter and Steve McCabe (Part 1)

A plan to re-enter Pike River Mine is expected to be announced today. International technical advisors have been meeting in Greymouth to figure out a plan. We ask the panelists if they're pleased or not with going back in the mine. Midwives have marched through Wellington today to deliver a pay equity petition to parliament. It calls for the Ministry of Health to support funding for the profession, as it struggles to keep up with demand, with midwives leaving their jobs for better pay. The College of Midwives says some midwives in rural New Zealand are paid as little as $7.23 an hour. We ask the panelists what they think. The discussion continues around the methamphetamine crisis, following yesterday's news that high school students were given a pamphlet entitled "10 ways to keep well if using meth". Dr Chris Wilkins of the SHORE research centre in Auckland, who has researched the impact of P in New Zealand, joins the discussion. We ask him about the situation and if this pamphlet is a part of harm prevention or a how-to guide. New Caledonia will vote on whether to remain part of France at the end of this year. Denise Fisher, Visiting Fellow at ANU's Centre for European Studies, tells us why New Caledonia is such a strategic country in the Pacific and what kind of impact it would have if the country chose to become independent.