Grey Areas with Petra Bagust

Sir Ashley Bloomfield spent 300-odd consecutive days walking out to a lectern and telling New Zealand the status of the public health plan. As Director-General of Health through the COVID-19 pandemic, he became one of the most recognisable faces in the country's history. Calm, consistent, and quietly formidable/ a constant presence. Five years on, he's a professor at the University of Auckland, CE...

Morgana O'Reilly is an actor, writer, and one-woman force of nature whose credits span Billy T James Award-nominated theatre, Mean Mums, Neighbours, an Emmy award-winning covid comedy thriller series called INSiDE, and White Lotus. Her one-woman show ‘Stories About My Body’, a sellout tour exploring what it means to live inside a female body across the seasons of life, has just been made into a fi...

Brodie Kane does not lead a quiet life. The week Petra sits down with her, she's training for the Noosa Half Marathon, producing two podcasts, prepping a live show, MCing events across the country, and running Brodie Kane Media as a one woman band. She is, by her own admission, running around like a “blue-arse fly”. And when things are getting out of hand, she's getting better at noticing it - whi...

Robyn Malcolm is one of New Zealand's most beloved actors. And at 61, she is, by her own account, having the time of her life. In this kōrero, Petra sits down with Robyn who’s beaming in from Glasgow, while watching squirrels in the park, writing a new project with After the Party collaborator Diane Taylor, and settling into a life that looks nothing like the one she'd have planned, and everything...

Most conversations about menopause cover hot flushes, brain fog, and sleep. Far fewer talk about what's happening below the waist, and for up to 84% of women, that silence comes at a real cost. Dr Iona Weir is a cell biologist, inventor, and founder of biotech company Myregyna®. Her life's work centres on apoptosis, the process of programmed cell death, and specifically how compounds found in plan...

Barbara Dreaver has spent decades moving towards stories others walk away from. As one of New Zealand's most respected journalists and TVNZ's Pacific correspondent, she has been detained in Fiji, witnessed children in crisis across the Pacific and stood in places where telling the truth was actively discouraged. In this kōrero, Petra and Barbara sit down properly for the first time, and the conver...

Dr Lara Briden is back, and for good reason. The naturopathic doctor, evolutionary biologist, and bestselling author of Period Repair Manual, Hormone Repair Manual, and The Metabolism Reset is the only guest to appear on Grey Areas three times, and this kōrero might be her best yet. In this episode, Petra and Lara dig into what it means to have a female body, and why that's not the complicated, me...

What does it actually look like to choose your family? Not just love them, but live with them, day in and day out, across generations and cultures? In this kōrero, Petra sits down with All Black legend Sir John Kirwan and his daughter – volleyball player, business owner and young mum – Francesca for a warm, wide-ranging conversation. They talk intergenerational living, the Italian way of life, and...

Tarryn Stokes won the 12th season of The Voice Australia at 40, making her the oldest winner in the show's history. But long before the blind audition that stopped the judges in their tracks, she'd spent years singing backing vocals for Guy Sebastian and Jessica Mauboy, leading worship in churches, and quietly wondering if she'd already missed her moment. In this kōrero, Tarryn opens up about grow...

Born in Aotearoa, raised in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, and transplanted to suburban Melbourne at age ten, Safina Stewart has spent most of her life figuring out where home is. As an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artist, educator, and storyteller, she's had to find that answer from the inside out. In this kōrero, Safina opens up about growing up as a "bush pikinini," not learning to...

Kia ora e te whānau! In the melee of mid-life - which can be dense, frantic and fabulous all at once - we need spaces to listen to each other and to ourselves, and it’s useful to navigate those gritty ‘grey areas’ together. This season, we aren’t holding back - digging deep into topics that matter most to us right now like hormones, skin, aging parents, courage and keeping on keeping on (and we ad...

In this episode, I sit down with the legendary Lucy Lawless — actor, director, and all-round creative force — for a real conversation about what it means to embrace midlife - to dig into the surprise and delight of this season. Lucy shares how her fifties have brought a renewed sense of drive and possibility. We talk about learning to take risks, staying open to being changed by others, and the fr...

In our fast-paced, image-oriented world, it's no surprise that our relationship with food - especially as our bodies change in midlife - can sometimes be fraught.  In this kōrero, Claire Turnbull, a seasoned nutritionist and author of, End Your Fight with Food, opens up about her personal challenges and provides insights into the complex world of eating, self-image, and holistic well-being.  We di...

In this episode I sit down with legend of the screen, print and airwaves, Jesse Mulligan for a candid conversation. We chat about being described as an 'enigma', his unique thought processes and difficulties parenting in a digital age. Jesse also opens up about the only time he cried on television, his challenges navigating romantic and professional relationships and his surprising perspective on...

Endometriosis affects at least 1 in every 10 women in Aotearoa New Zealand — that is a staggering number. In this episode, mother and content creator Fatima Savea opens up about her long struggle with severe menstrual pain and undiagnosed endometriosis, which took a serious toll on both her physical and mental health. Fatima shares how she and her husband, Julian Savea, only discovered the conditi...

In this episode Jess Quinn shares her courageous journey from surviving cancer as a child to becoming an amputee and dealing with endometriosis.  Jess talks about her path to self-acceptance, the very real challenges and joys of motherhood without the convenience of two legs, and her advocacy work for women's health.  Emphasizing radical acceptance and her life as ‘an open book’ with boundaries, J...

TJ Power is the best-selling author of The DOSE Effect and a neuroscientist who teaches people, young and old, how to fix their brains.  By paying attention to how we’re wired, and what we spend our time doing, we can change our brain chemistry in remarkably simple and effective ways. In our social media-soaked frantic society it’s easy to accidentally ‘hack’ our motivation getting cheap rewards t...

In this interview, I sat down with the inspiring, go-getter Nadia Lim.  Our conversation covers cookbooks, chickens, sunflowers, and the seasons of life. Nadia also opens up about her relationship with her husband Carlos, the importance of self-care, community and resilience.  This is a deeply candid discussion filled with valuable insights, plenty of laughs, and reveals the highs and lows of jugg...

In this interview, I sat down with beloved kiwi musician Stan Walker. Our conversation covers his multidimensional career, his journey with identity, the importance of maintaining boundaries, and protecting his peace.  He speaks openly about his growing understanding of forgiveness, the effects of trauma, and the long-term process of healing and self-acceptance. Stan also emphasises his dedication...

As you and most of the world know, Dame Jacinda is the former Prime Minister of New Zealand and recently published her best-selling memoir, A Different Kind of Power. Our cross-hemisphere conversation covers identity, servant leadership, politics and her immense sense of responsibility. We also chat about the brand new documentary, Prime Minister, (and having partner Clarke Gayford turning the cam...

Season 8 of Grey Areas launches tomorrow! And just like the first sensational seven seasons my guests will wrangle with the challenging, embrace the mystery and celebrate the wins - I’m excited to dig into the grey areas of life with my NEW guests and you. Can’t wait! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this bonus episode of Grey Areas, we bring you the full interview with neuropsychiatrist Dr Greg Finucane for episode 1 of this season, ‘When ADHD meets perimenopause’. A conversation that turned out to be unexpectedly emotional – and incredibly clarifying. We talk about why so many women, including me, are getting diagnosed with ADHD in midlife, and how perimenopause can cause the carefully st...

In part two of my conversation with Dame Anne Salmond, we go deeper - into wānanga (the meeting of ideas), into te ao Māori (Māori worldview), and into the kind of thinking that could help us live better together. Dame Anne speaks about her decades-long relationship with her Māori mentors, Eruera and Amiria Stirling, and how those relationships rewired her understanding of the world. We talk about...

In this first part of our kōrero, I sit down with Dame Anne Salmond—a thinker whose mind is vast, and whose heart is very much rooted in the soil of Aotearoa. Dame Anne is an anthropologist, writer, and one of our most decorated scholars, but what shapes her most is relationship - whakapapa, whenua, and whānau. We start where all good conversations should: at the kitchen table. Dame Anne tells me...

In this episode I sit down with biochemist Dr Libby Weaver, a nutritionist, speaker, and author of 13 books (soon to be 14). Libby brings a holistic lens to wellbeing, combining science, nutrition, and emotional insight in a way that’s both practical and also deeply human. We explore the gap between what we know and what we do, and why that gap exists. Libby unpacks the power of belief systems – h...